Other forms: appeased, appeasing
To appease is to calm somebody by giving them what they want. Appease the crowd, appease his critics, hard to appease.
The word is permanently coloured by appeasement, the policy of conceding to Hitler in the 1930s, and since then to appease has carried a suggestion of weakness that it did not originally have. Of hunger or curiosity it simply means to satisfy. Note that the French behind it means to bring to peace.
1verbappeaseTo calm somebody by giving them what they want.
“To appease the angry passengers, the airline gave everyone a free meal.”
appease is a placating.
Old French apeser means to bring to peace, from a plus pais, peace, from Latin pax. Peace, pacify and pact come from the same peace.
Old French
apeser — to pacify, bring to peace
Middle English
apesen
English, today
appease
From Middle English apesen, from Old French apeser (“to pacify, bring to peace”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA