conciliate

verb con·cil·i·ate \ kən-ˈsi-lē-ˌāt \

|Updated on: 27 May 2018

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Examples: conciliate in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of conciliate

conciliated; conciliating

transitive verb

1 : appease

… urgently counseled conciliating the peasants …
—William Taubman

2 : to gain (something, such as goodwill) by pleasing acts

3 : to make compatible : reconcile

It is hard to conciliate the views of labor and management on this point.

intransitive verb

: to become friendly or agreeable

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conciliation

play \kən-ˌsi-lē-ˈā-shən\ noun

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conciliative

play \kən-ˈsi-lē-ˌā-tiv\ adjective

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conciliator

play \kən-ˈsi-lē-ˌā-tər\ noun

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conciliatory

play \kən-ˈsil-yə-ˌtȯr-ē, -ˈsi-lē-ə-\ adjective

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Examples of conciliate in a Sentence

The company's attempts to conciliate the strikers have failed.
it will be hard to conciliate the views of labor and management regarding health benefits

Recent Examples of conciliate from the Web

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has proclaimed the end of Obama-era reforms which conciliated between civil-rights activists and police to yield a wave of law-enforcement reforms.

— jonathan chait, Daily Intelligencer, "Most Unpatriotic President Ever Says Kneeling NFL Players ‘Shouldn’t Be in the Country’," 24 May 2018
There are no complexities, no ambiguities, no conflicting views to consider or conciliate.

— holman w. jenkins, WSJ, "Why N.Y. Pols Aren’t World Class," 8 May 2018
On the left, many liberals still wanted to conciliate rather than to confront our wartime ally Stalin.

— walter russell mead, WSJ, "What Truman Can Teach Trump," 21 July 2017

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

Did You Know?

A council is "an assembly or meeting for consultation, advice, or discussion," and it is often the task of a council to conciliate opposing views. It seems fitting, therefore, that the words "council" and "conciliate" both derive from the Latin word concilium, which means "assembly" or "council." "Conciliate" comes to us from the Latin conciliatus, the past participle of the verb "conciliare" (meaning "to assemble, unite, win over"), which in turn is from "concilium." ("Council," on the other hand, derives from the Anglo-French cunseil or "cuncile," from "concilium.") Other "concilium" descendants in English include "conciliar" ("of, relating to, or issued by a council") and the rare "conciliabule" ("a clandestine meeting especially of conspirators or rebels").