appease

verb ap·pease \ ə-ˈpēz \

|Updated on: 5 Aug 2018

Definition of appease

appeased; appeasing

1 : pacify, conciliate; especially : to make concessions to (someone, such as an aggressor or a critic) often at the sacrifice of principles

appeased the dictator by accepting his demands

Placaters, who try hard to appease others so as to keep the peace, fear getting hurt in some way.
—Mike Cote

2 : to cause to subside : allay

appeased my hunger

trying to appease her guilty conscience

3 : to bring to a state of peace or quiet : calm

appease a quarrel

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appeasable

play \-ˈpē-zə-bəl\ adjective

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appeasement

play \-ˈpēz-mənt\ noun

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appeaser

noun

See appease defined for English-language learners

See appease defined for kids

Examples of appease in a Sentence

But I imagine he and his siblings, who profited handsomely from the sale, have mixed emotions. They may be sad they had to sell, yet relieved that they are no longer under pressure to appease Wall Street's demand for growth and profits. —James Laube, Wine Spectator, 31 Mar. 2005
The first is that, in affluent America, mothering has gone from an art to a cult, with devotees driving themselves to ever more baroque extremes to appease the goddess of perfect motherhood. —Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review, 20 Feb. 2005
It was last summer, and Gingell, then Sun Microsystems's chief software engineer, had an excuse: His twin-engine Cessna had broken down, and he'd lost track of time while he gabbed on the phone with his mechanic. That wasn't likely to appease Sun's famously tart-tongued CEO, Scott McNealy, who was getting his introductory briefing on a vital new technology initiative that happened to be Gingell's brainchild. —Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0, September 2002
The California legislature's solution to this seemingly intractable problem was a politically appealing package with features to appease both utility investors and ratepayers. —Benjamin A. Holden, Wall Street Journal, 19 Feb. 1997
They appeased the dictator by accepting his demands in an effort to avoid war.
His critics were not appeased by this last speech.
They made sacrifices to appease the gods.
We had no way to appease our hunger.

Recent Examples of appease from the Web

See her response for yourself, below: Grande's tweet appeased some of her fans.

— christopher rosa, Glamour, "Ariana Grande Didn't Find That Joke Pete Davidson Made About the Manchester Bombing Funny," 6 July 2018
Comcast believes that the U.S. court approval of a vertical merger of a distributor and a content provider by allowing AT&T to acquire Time Warner should appease Fox’s regulatory concerns.

— ben dummett, WSJ, "Activist Chris Hohn Pushes Fox to Consider Comcast Bid," 28 June 2018
McCabe and his supporters described the action as an act of vindictiveness to appease the president.

— joseph tanfani, latimes.com, "Internal report that McCabe misled investigators sent to criminal prosecutors," 19 Apr. 2018
Even though Flake no longer has to worry about appeasing hard-right Arizonans in future primaries, his voting record in no way reflects his Trump apostasy.

— benjamin hart, Daily Intelligencer, "Jeff Flake to Deliver Another Fiery Anti-Trump Speech From Senate Floor," 15 Jan. 2018
At that meeting in Singapore, Mr. Trump unexpectedly cancelled scheduled military maneuvers with South Korea without telling Seoul, to appease North Korea.

— robert wall, WSJ, "Trump Fuels Anxiety in Europe Over Security," 13 July 2018
Twitter has gone to great lengths to appease the right, and any purge, however justified, would result in waves of negative coverage from Fox News and the Drudge Report.

— alex shephard, The New Republic, "Is Twitter Good Now?," 13 July 2018
Theresa May’s worst decisions have all been driven by a desire to appease the Brexit wing of her party.

— The Economist, "The Conservative Party has trashed the basic principles of conservatism," 12 July 2018
Massara said the district and residents have tried everything over the past few years to appease the Coastal Commission, including unlocking the gate and allowing free daytime access during the summer.

— peter fimrite, SFChronicle.com, "Fight brewing over Privates Beach in Santa Cruz County, which charges $100 yearly fee," 12 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'appease.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.