Meaning & use
make peace
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Meanings
phraseidiom
To end a quarrel or conflict and restore friendly relations with another person or group.
Grammar: Often followed by with; the verb make changes form: made peace, making peace.
Patterns
- make peace with someone
- make peace between people
After years of silence, the two brothers decided to make peace.
The neighboring villages finally made peace and reopened the road.
She called her old friend to make peace before the wedding.
phraseidiomfigurative
To come to accept something painful or unavoidable so that it no longer troubles you.
Grammar: Needs with plus the thing accepted: make peace with the past.
Patterns
- make peace with something
- make peace with yourself
He made peace with leaving his hometown for good.
It took her a long time to make peace with her failure.
Grandpa had made peace with growing old.
Word forms
| third person singular | makes peace |
|---|---|
| past tense | made peace |
| past participle | made peace |
| -ing form | making peace |
Common combinations
- make peace with the past
- She is trying to make peace with the past.
- make peace with an enemy
- The king chose to make peace with his old enemy.
- finally make peace
- The cousins finally made peace over the inheritance.
- make peace with yourself
- You must make peace with yourself before you can move on.
- make peace between
- The teacher tried to make peace between the two teams.
Synonyms and how they differ
- reconcile
- Reconcile is more formal and often suggests repairing a real emotional or legal rift.
- bury the hatchet
- Bury the hatchet is an informal idiom that stresses dropping an old grudge, not accepting a difficulty.
- settle
- Settle usually needs an object like a dispute, whereas make peace focuses on the relationship between the parties.
- come to terms
- Come to terms suits acceptance of a hard fact, but it lacks the friendly reunion that make peace can imply.
Opposites
Word family
- peace noun
- freedom from conflict
- peaceful adjective
- calm or free from violence
- peacemaker noun
- someone who helps end disputes
- peacefully adverb
- in a calm way
Commonly confused: make peace or keep the peace?
make peace vs keep the peace
Keep the peace means to prevent disorder from starting, while make peace means to end an existing conflict.
Practice
After the argument, Dan wanted to ___ peace with his sister.
Choose one answer.
The set expression is make peace with someone. Do and take are not used with peace in this idiom.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “make peace”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.