pacify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pacifien,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French pacifier, also pacefier,^[5][4][2] and partly directly borrowed from Latin pācificō (“to placate, appease; to make peace”).^[5][3][6] The French verb is recorded in Old French from the 13th century,^[5] in Anglo-Norman from 1307,^[7] and is a learned borrowing of the Latin one,^[4] which comes from pācificus (“peaceful, peace-making”),^[5][4][8] itself from pāx (“peace”) with an ending from faciō (“to make, do”).^[9][8] Barnhart thinks the English verb may in some instances be a back-formation from the earlier pacification, though borrowing is more likely,^[4] and Oxford also notes the earlier noun.^[10] The American Heritage Dictionary refers pāx to Proto-Indo-European *pag-,^[11] and Ayto gives the base as *pāk- (“to fasten”), which he connects with pact.^[12] The OED compares Italian pacificare, Portuguese pacificar and Spanish pacificar.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bring a country or people to a state of peace: 1474, in the letter books of the monastery of Christ Church.^[5] Barnhart has pacifien before 1475,^[4] and the MED's earliest quotation, from Ashby's Dicta, dated before 1500 in its manuscript and before 1475 in its composition, means to appease an enemy.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The English verb arrived with both of its main uses, one political and one personal, and the sources date them closely: to bring a region to peace from 1474 and to soothe a person from 1484, in Caxton's Aesop.^[5] According to Etymonline the political use carried from the start a suggestion of forced submission and terror,^[8] and the MED glosses it as to reduce a region to submission, to terrorize.^[2] From these the verb spread to calming strong feelings (1515) and, chiefly in literature, to quieting storms and winds (before 1522).^[5] It could also mean to reconcile contending parties, as in Melusine about 1500.^[5][2] Johnson (1755) defined it mainly as to appease and quiet an angry person, though his quotation from Bacon shows the older sense of settling a country.^[13] In the dialects recorded by Wright, it meant to satisfy or suffice in Ireland, and to quiet by force or a beating in Oxfordshire.^[14] The agent noun pacifier, a person who pacifies, dates from 1533, and its use for a baby's nipple-shaped device is American, first recorded in 1904.^[4]

Timeline

• 1474 – to bring a country or people to a state of peace; to subdue.^[5]
• 1484 – to soothe a person, to mollify.^[5]
• before 1500 – to appease an enemy, to conciliate.^[5][2]
• c. 1500 – to reconcile contending parties.^[5][2]
• 1509 – intransitive, to calm down (rare).^[5]
• before 1513 – to quell a disorder or uprising.^[5]
• 1515 – to calm a strong feeling; to set the mind at rest.^[5]
• before 1522 – to make the elements calm, to cause a storm to subside.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To calm the anger or agitation of; to soothe or placate: A rattle was enough to pacify the crying baby.^[15][3][5]
2. To bring a country or people to a state of peace, especially by the threat or use of force.^[15][3][5]
3. To appease or win over a hostile person or power.^[3][5]
4. To put down a rebellion or calm a disorder.^[5][16]
5. To make a strong feeling or the mind calm: Nothing could pacify his fears.^[5][16][3]
6. (rare) To become calm.^[5][16]
7. (obsolete) To reconcile parties in a quarrel, or one party with another.^[16][5]

Word family

• pacifiable
• pacifyingly
• pacifier
• repacify

Related words

• pacific
• pacifism
• pacifist
• pacifistic
• peace
• pact
• appease
• pay
• pacification

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ 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