appeasement

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English appesement,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French apaisement (“calming, pacification”),^[4][2][5][6] recorded in Anglo-Norman as apesement from the early 12th century, meaning reconciliation, a financial settlement or a ransom.^[7] It is a noun of action from apaisier (“to pacify”), the source of appease, with the suffix -ment;^[4][2][3] the verb comes from the phrase a paisier, from a (“to”) and pais (“peace”), from Latin pāx (“peace”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of appeasing; pacification: 1430, in instructions to ambassadors printed in Rymer's Foedera.^[4][8] Etymonline dates it to the mid-15th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word could also mean a means of appeasing, a propitiation (1561–1678);^[4][8] from 1586 it also meant the state of being appeased.^[4][8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a state of peace".^[9] The political sense was first recorded in 1919, in a message of General Smuts.^[4][2] It was not pejorative at first: Neville Chamberlain himself spoke of methods of appeasement, and the word took its disparaging tone from 1938–9, with the failure of his policy of concessions to Nazi Germany.^[2][4][5]

Timeline

• 1430 – the action of appeasing; pacification.^[4][8]
• 1561 – a means of appeasing, propitiation (obsolete after 1678).^[4][8]
• 1586 – the state of being appeased.^[4][8]
• 1919 – in politics, conciliation of another nation.^[4][8][2]
• 1938 – disparaging, conciliation by concession, in allusion to the policy toward Nazi Germany.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A policy of giving in to the demands of a hostile power in the hope of keeping the peace, especially that of Britain toward Nazi Germany before 1939.^[10][5][3]
2. The act of appeasing; pacification or conciliation: the appeasement of an angry crowd.^[3][10][4]

Related words

• appease
• peace
• pacify
• pacification

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d e f g Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins