Meaning & use
mollify
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To make someone less angry or upset; to calm someone's anger.
Grammar: Takes an object: mollify someone. Often used with angry customers, critics, or opponents.
Patterns
- mollify someone
- mollify someone with something
- try to mollify someone
The manager tried to mollify the angry customer by offering a full refund.
Her calm apology mollified his irritation.
The government's concessions did little to mollify the protesters.
verbtransitive
To make a difficult or severe situation less harsh.
Grammar: Takes an object: mollify something (e.g., fears, concerns, tensions).
Patterns
- mollify something
- mollify concerns
- mollify tensions
The new policy was designed to mollify public fears about safety.
His gentle tone mollified the tension in the room.
Word forms
| third person singular | mollifies |
|---|---|
| past tense | mollified |
| past participle | mollified |
| -ing form | mollifying |
Common combinations
- mollify an angry customer
- The airline offered free tickets to mollify angry customers.
- mollify the critics
- The director added more funding to mollify critics of the project.
- mollify fears
- The spokesperson tried to mollify fears about the new virus.
- mollify tensions
- The peace talks aimed to mollify tensions between the two countries.
Synonyms and how they differ
- appease
- Often implies giving in to demands to keep peace, sometimes with a negative tone.
- pacify
- Focuses on bringing calm to someone who is agitated or violent.
- soothe
- More about comfort and relief, often for pain or distress, not just anger.
- placate
- Very similar, but often suggests trying to stop someone from being angry by making concessions.
Opposites
Word family
- mollification noun
- The act of calming someone or making something less severe.
- mollifying adjective
- Having a calming effect (e.g., mollifying words).
Commonly confused: mollify or mollify vs. modify?
mollify vs mollify vs. modify
Mollify means to calm; modify means to change. They sound somewhat similar but have different meanings.
Practice
The company offered a discount to ______ the unhappy clients.
Choose one answer.
Mollify is the verb meaning to calm someone's anger. Modify means to change, mollification is a noun, and mollifying is an adjective or -ing form, which cannot follow 'to' as the main verb here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mollify”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.