appeasement

noun

ap·​pease·​ment ə-ˈpēz-mənt 

plural appeasements

1

: the act or action of appeasing someone or something

… one tribe may go in for the appeasement of local ghosts …

—W. D. Howells

especially : a policy of appeasing an enemy or potential aggressor by making concessions

Although appeasement may work in individual cases, terrorist groups with global ambitions cannot be appeased by territorial concessions.

—Walter Laqueur

The Munich analogy—recalling the Allies' appeasement of Germany over its demands on Czechoslovakia in 1938—has been cited again and again, and this is understandable.

—Fredric Smoler

2

: the state of being satisfied

an experience from which he derived little appeasement

… we are relieved to read of Shaw … alleviating the tedium of a vegetarian diet with secret gorges on boiled sweets and cake; his sensuality found appeasement in sugar.

—Robertson Davies

Examples of appeasement in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But much less has been heard lately of the conservative critique of Kissinger, which claimed that Kissinger’s policy was tantamount to appeasement. —Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024

Iran and its proxies stand ready to plunge Israel into another existential war after the decade that Obama and his associates spent fruitlessly pursuing the predictably faulty strategy of appeasement. —Daniel Foster, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023

And unlike appeasement, détente successfully avoided a world war. —Niall Ferguson, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024

Also, pirates weren't really religious, but Bartholomew Roberts would dock at shore so his crew could celebrate Christmas—perhaps as an appeasement. —Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 30 Dec. 2023

Yet instead of taking any of these available steps, the administration seems to have returned to the very same appeasement policy that precipitated the invasion of Ukraine in the first place. —Robert Zubrin, National Review, 12 Jan. 2024

The Biden administration has faced accusations that it is engaged in soggy appeasement toward the world’s worst state-sponsor of international terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran. —Benjamin Weinthal, Fox News, 12 Sep. 2023

Yet many in Armenia and among its large and influential diaspora are furious, seeing in Pashinyan a Neville Chamberlain-like figure whose appeasement of Azerbaijan will only encourage it to go for more. —Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2023

Images: Zuma Press/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly Wars are times of transition, when old ideologies are discredited: slavery, isolationism, appeasement, socialism. —Andy Kessler, WSJ, 22 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1