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quell

UK/kwɛl/US/kwɛl/
verbC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,741 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: quelled, quelling

To quell is to put an end to a rebellion or a fear. Quell the riot, quell the rumours, quell his doubts.

It takes trouble as its object — riots, unrest, fears, doubts — and it means suppressing rather than resolving, which is why quelling a rebellion says nothing about the grievance behind it. It is formal. Note that the Old English verb meant simply to kill, which is a good deal blunter.

Definitions of quell

  1. 1verbquellTo put an end to a rebellion or a fear.C1

    “Police were sent in to quell the riot.”

quell is a suppressing.

Where it comes from

Old English cwellan means to kill. The sense weakened to suppressing rather than killing.

  1. Middle English

    quellen

  2. English, today

    quell

From Middle English quellen. From Middle English quellen, from Old English cwellan (“to kill”), from Proto-West Germanic kwalljan, from Proto-Germanic kwaljaną (“to make die; kill”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʷelH-. Cognate with German quälen (“to torment; agonise; smite”), Swedish kvälja (“to torment”), Icelandic kvelja (“to torture; torment”). Compare also xcl կեղ (“sore, ulcer”), cu жаль (“pain”). See also kill, which may be its doublet.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Verbs

Practise this word

quell in the wild

  • The dorji was a weapon used by Guru Rinpoche to quell evil spirits.

    Emblem of Bhutan

  • Ashe was considered to have encouraged discrimination against Indians, suppressed independence activism, and ordered the use of violence to quell the same.

    Vanchinathan

  • There is no conventional suspension for either wheel, though the front fork may use carbon or steel to quell vibration.

    Flat bar road bike

  • However, the government has blocked access to news sites and social media in isolated incidents in efforts to quell protests.

    Internet censorship in Malawi

  • Petros Voulgaris was called from retirement and appointed vice-admiral to quell the revolt.

    1944 Greek naval mutiny

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.