reason with

phrasal verb

reasoned with; reasoning with; reasons with

: to talk with (someone) in a sensible way in order to try to change that person's thoughts or behavior

They tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen.

Examples of reason with in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Kennedy could see officers on the other side of the door pointing guns at the protesters as Republican lawmakers tried to reason with the mob. —Daniel Desrochers, Kansas City Star, 3 Apr. 2024

Like many politicians, Khan is trying to reason with a maelstrom of unreason. —Peter Guest, WIRED, 26 Mar. 2024

Meanwhile, the muscular man was trying to reason with the bread vender. —Mohammed Naseehu Ali, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024

Trying to reason with someone like that is like trying to hand-feed a shark. —Frederick Kaufman, Harper's Magazine, 26 Feb. 2024

In Taipei, some residents see little point in trying to reason with Beijing. —Lily Kuo, Washington Post, 14 Jan. 2024

In Honor of the Service Dog Who Saved His Life, This Veteran Funds Care to Keep Others' Service Dogs Healthy After the festivities and visit, the family returned to the U.S., where Zafar tried to reason with her mom. —Susan Young, Peoplemag, 9 Dec. 2023

For historic reasons with roots in Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, heirs’ property in urban areas is disproportionately found in neighborhoods with high concentrations of Black residents. —Amelia Winger, Miami Herald, 26 Jan. 2024

Feed-forward networks reason with vector math Recent research from Brown University revealed an elegant example of how feed-forward layers help to predict the next word. —Timothy B. Lee and Sean Trott, Ars Technica, 31 July 2023