Other forms: pacified, pacifying, pacifies
To pacify is to calm somebody down, or to bring peace to a place. Pacify the baby, pacify the crowd, pacify the region.
The military sense is a notorious euphemism: to pacify a region has meant to crush resistance in it, and the word has never quite recovered. The everyday sense is gentle and means to soothe.
1verbpacifyTo calm somebody down, or to bring peace to a place.
“The mother tried to pacify the crying baby with a bottle.”
pacify is a calming.
Latin pacificare is pax, peace, plus facere, to make.
Latin
pāx — peace
Middle French
pacifier
English, today
pacify
Built from
From Middle French pacifier, from Latin pāx (“peace”) + faciō (“to do, make”). Cognate with pay and peacify.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA