appease

verb (used with object), ap·peased, ap·peas·ing.

to bring to a state of peace, quiet, ease, calm, or contentment; pacify; soothe: to appease an angry king.

to satisfy, allay, or relieve; assuage: The fruit appeased his hunger.

to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English apesen < Anglo-French apeser, Old French apais(i)er, equivalent to a- a-⁵ + paisi- peace + -er infinitive suffix

Related forms

ap·peas·a·ble, adjective

ap·peas·a·ble·ness, noun

ap·peas·a·bly, adverb

ap·pease·ment, noun

ap·peas·er, noun

ap·peas·ing·ly, adverb

non·ap·peas·a·ble, adjective

non·ap·peas·ing, adjective

un·ap·peas·a·ble, adjective

un·ap·peas·a·b·ly, adverb

un·ap·peased, adjective

un·ap·peas·ing, adjective

un·ap·peas·ing·ly, adverb

Synonyms
1. calm, placate. 3. Appease, conciliate, propitiate imply trying to preserve or obtain peace. To appease is to make anxious overtures and often undue concessions to satisfy the demands of someone with a greed for power, territory, etc.: Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler at Munich. To conciliate is to win an enemy or opponent over by displaying a willingness to be just and fair: When mutual grievances are recognized, conciliation is possible. To propitiate is to admit a fault, and, by trying to make amends, to allay hostile feeling: to propitiate an offended neighbor.

Antonyms
1. enrage. 2. increase, arouse, sharpen. 3. defy.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Relevant Questions

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Appease is a GRE word you need to know.

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to depart in a sudden and secret manner, esp. to avoid capture and legal prosecution:

wishing evil or harm to another or others; showing ill will; ill-disposed; malicious:

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Collins

World English Dictionary

appease (əˈpiːz)

—vb
1.	to calm, pacify, or soothe, esp by acceding to the demands of
2.	to satisfy or quell (an appetite or thirst, etc)

[C16: from Old French apaisier, from pais peace, from Latin pax]

ap'peasable

—*adj*

ap'peaser

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

appease

early 14c., from O.Fr. apaiser, apeser "to pacify, make peace, appease, be reconciled, placate" (12c.), from the phrase a paisier "bring to peace," from a- "to" + pais, from L. pacem (nom. pax) "peace."

Example sentences

On this coast old stone monuments appease the spirits of dead whales.

It was almost as though they had cooked something up to appease the gods of

marketing.

Festivals and shrines celebrate and appease the spirits.

Concerts often lasted for hours, but they included encores to appease the

roaring applause.

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enrage mitigate moderate mollify piacular rest

Matching Quote

"Freud makes much of the distinction between jokes which just barely make sense, and those whose main value lies in the sense they make. He calls the first kind "jests," and thinks them radically distinct from wit. In jests our motive is the mere pleasure that children have in talking nonsense, a pleasure that he thinks is not of itself comic. The fact that our nonsense does just barely, in another sense, make sense, serves only to appease our critical judgment and release us from our adult task of inhibiting these childish proclivities. The energy which we had been employing in this task, however, being thus liberated, not only greatly increases our pleasure in the nonsense, but, in some manner which Freud does not even try to explain, makes it a comic pleasure. When, however, besides barely making sense, a piece of nonsense actually "says a mouthful" on some subject of current interest, or taps our deeper reservoirs of sexual and aggressive passion, then the pleasure is still greater—and still more comic, I suppose—and the jest is properly called wit."

-Max Eastman