Meaning & use
reconciliation
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Meanings
noununcountable
The renewal of friendly relations between people or groups who had fallen out or been in conflict.
Grammar: Often followed by between or with: reconciliation between the two sisters.
Patterns
- reconciliation between X and Y
- reconciliation with someone
After years of silence, the brothers reached a reconciliation.
The commission worked toward national reconciliation after the war.
Their reconciliation came at their mother's funeral.
nouncountable or uncountablefinancebusiness
The process of showing that two sets of figures or records agree, or finding and explaining why they do not.
Grammar: Used in accounting: a bank reconciliation, the monthly reconciliation.
Patterns
- reconciliation of something with something
The accountant completed the bank reconciliation on Friday.
A reconciliation of the invoices revealed a missing payment.
nounsingularformal
The act of making two ideas, beliefs or demands fit together although they seem to conflict.
Grammar: Usually followed by of: the reconciliation of work and family life.
Patterns
- reconciliation of X with Y
The reconciliation of faith and science occupied him for decades.
She sought a reconciliation of her career goals with raising a child.
Word forms
| plural | reconciliations |
|---|
Common combinations
- achieve reconciliation
- The leaders hoped to achieve reconciliation between the groups.
- bank reconciliation
- A bank reconciliation checks your records against the statement.
- truth and reconciliation
- The country set up a truth and reconciliation commission.
- attempt at reconciliation
- His gift was an attempt at reconciliation.
- national reconciliation
- National reconciliation took a generation.
Synonyms and how they differ
- rapprochement
- Rapprochement is a formal word used for warmer relations between states, while reconciliation also fits private quarrels.
- peacemaking
- Peacemaking describes the effort to end a conflict, whereas reconciliation is the restored relationship itself.
- harmonization
- Harmonization makes things consistent, which matches the third sense, but carries no idea of forgiveness.
- settlement
- A settlement is an agreement that ends a dispute, and need not bring friendship back.
Opposites
Word family
- reconcile verb
- to make friendly again or make consistent
- reconcilable adjective
- able to be made compatible
- irreconcilable adjective
- impossible to settle
- reconciliatory adjective
- intended to restore good relations
Commonly confused: reconciliation or conciliation?
reconciliation vs conciliation
Conciliation means calming someone or settling a dispute, but reconciliation adds the idea of restoring a previous bond.
Practice
The two families finally reached a ___ after a decade of feuding.
Choose one answer.
Reconciliation means restored friendly relations. Reconnaissance, recognition and recreation sound similar but have different meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “reconciliation”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.