Appeasing

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. The process of reducing someone's anger or discontent by giving in to their requests involves efforts to create harmony or alleviate grievances
2. Efforts aimed at soothing tensions or frustrations through compromises or concessions can be characterized as attempts to pacify
3. The act of calming someone’s dissatisfaction or irritation by yielding to their demands signifies a broader strategy of fostering tranquility or resolving disputes

Etymology: "Appeasing" is the present participle of "appease", and the verb's history is a neat example of a word drifting from physical weight to emotional calm. It comes from Middle English "apesen", borrowed from Old French "apeser", meaning to pacify or bring to peace. The Old French verb is built from "a-", a prefix marking movement toward something, and "pes", meaning peace, which descends from Latin "pax". The English verb is therefore a sibling of "peace" and "pacify", all sharing the same Latin root for calm and agreement. The French verb itself had a more literal ancestry. Its base "peser" is related to the idea of weighing, and the older sense of "apeser" involved settling or putting something at rest, the way a weight stills a restless object. Over time the notion of stilling a physical thing gave way to stilling a person, so that to appease came to mean to quiet someone's anger or grievance rather than to lay a load down.

Synonyms: pacifying, calming, soothing, conciliatory, placating

Antonyms: provoking, irritating, agitating, inciting, offending