Meaning & use
appease
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Meanings
verbtransitivedisapproving
To calm someone who is angry by giving them what they want.
Grammar: Takes a person as the object: appease the crowd.
Patterns
- appease someone
- appease someone with something
The manager offered a refund to appease the angry customer.
Politicians tried to appease voters with tax cuts.
He bought flowers to appease his wife.
verbtransitivedisapproving
To avoid conflict with an aggressive power by giving in to its demands.
Grammar: Often in political history: appease a dictator.
Patterns
- appease an aggressor
Critics said the treaty merely appeased a dictator.
Leaders hoped to appease the invader.
Giving in will only appease them for a while.
verbtransitiveliterary
To ease a feeling such as hunger or anger.
Grammar: Literary; the object is a feeling.
Patterns
- appease hunger
A snack appeased his hunger.
Her soft words appeased his anger.
Nothing could appease her curiosity.
Word forms
| third person singular | appeases |
|---|---|
| past tense | appeased |
| past participle | appeased |
| -ing form | appeasing |
Common combinations
- appease the critics
- The mayor made changes to appease the critics.
- policy of appeasement
- The policy of appeasement failed.
- appease a dictator
- Leaders chose to appease a dictator.
- appease anger
- A small gift can appease anger.
- hard to appease
- The crowd was hard to appease.
Synonyms and how they differ
- placate
- Placate is close in meaning but more neutral, focusing on calming rather than giving in.
- pacify
- Pacify means to quiet someone down, often a child or upset person, without the sense of concession.
- mollify
- Mollify is formal and suggests soothing hurt feelings.
- satisfy
- Satisfy means to meet needs and has no connotation of avoiding conflict.
Opposites
Word family
- appeasement noun
- the act of giving in to demands to keep the peace
- appeaser noun
- a person who appeases
- appeasable adjective
- able to be calmed
- unappeasable adjective
- impossible to calm
Commonly confused: appease or please?
appease vs please
Please means to make someone happy, whereas appease means to calm someone's anger.
Practice
The airline offered free tickets to ______ the angry passengers.
Choose one answer.
Appease means to calm someone by giving something. Annoy, ignore and provoke would make things worse.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “appease”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.