How to Use pacify in a Sentence

pacify

verb
  • Their efforts to pacify the nation by force failed.
  • She resigned from her position to pacify her accusers.
  • In September, the army was called in to help pacify the streets.
    Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2018
  • The lack of a clear roadmap for the U.S. stimulus plan did little to pacify the markets.
    David Meyer, Fortune, 11 Mar. 2020
  • The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.
    Anthony Leonardi, Washington Examiner, 10 Feb. 2020
  • People gently caressed his head to pacify the man who seemed to be in his 60s.
    Amanat Khullar, Quartz India, 28 Feb. 2020
  • As the rift got deeper between the brothers, Kate, who used to be so close to Harry, tried to pacify things.
    Kathryn Lindsay, refinery29.com, 27 May 2020
  • The government has sought to cap the prices of some food items, rent and school fees, but that’s done little to pacify its critics.
    Katarina Hoije, Bloomberg.com, 8 June 2023
  • Avoiding a pitch clock in 2018 has not pacified critics.
    Hunter Atkins, Houston Chronicle, 19 Feb. 2018
  • The amendments Tuesday did not pacify groups opposed to the bill or the scores of parents who have flooded the Capitol in protest.
    Melody Gutierrez, latimes.com, 18 June 2019
  • Ukraine was supposed to have been pacified within 10 days.
    Peter Weber, The Week, 30 Aug. 2023
  • The government cut a number of economic crimes from the list to pacify them.
    Natasha Khan, WSJ, 16 June 2019
  • To pacify the monster, Cassiopeia's daughter, Princess Andromeda, was left tied to a rock by the sea.
    Todd Nelson, Star Tribune, 1 Feb. 2021
  • For all their rhetoric about human rights and the laws of war, the foreigners had chosen him to pacify Kandahar.
    Matthieu Aikins Victor J. Blue Peter Ganim Krish Seenivasan Steven Szczesniak, New York Times, 22 May 2024
  • But the league came out with Wednesday’s goofy, hard and fast edict designed to satisfy, or pacify, all involved with a line down the middle.
    Mike Anthony, courant.com, 27 May 2018
  • At the time, Shanahan’s quote sounded like a way to publicly pacify his still-simmering starter.
    Eric Branch, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Nov. 2021
  • So there is a lot of pacifying that kind of goes into that relationship as well.
    Quartz Staff, Quartz, 9 May 2023
  • Locking him up would go a long way toward pacifying fans who are trying to hang with the Orioles during the lean years ahead.
    Peter Schmuck, baltimoresun.com, 31 July 2019
  • The concession failed to pacify left-wing unions, which are calling for nationwide protests next week.
    Noemie Bisserbe, WSJ, 24 Jan. 2020
  • At the time, Oosthuizen was simply trying to pacify his children on an airplane.
    Karen Crouse, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2017
  • No, Young’s lyrics won’t pacify your panic after smoking too much weed.
    The Fresh Toast, chicagotribune.com, 28 July 2019
  • That statement did little to pacify the public anger, and calls for a boycott of the show continued online in China.
    Berry Wang, CNN, 25 Aug. 2023
  • When Hong Kong is pacified, Xi will once again return his attention to Taiwan.
    Matthew Continetti, National Review, 24 Aug. 2019
  • To pacify these spirits and ward off trouble, people would leave out offerings of food.
    Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Sep. 2024
  • During our first quarantine week, my wife and I tried many frivolous shows to pacify us.
    Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 9 Apr. 2020
  • Virtual try-ons, however, may not be enough to pacify shoppers in the long haul, said First Insight's Petro.
    Parija Kavilanz, CNN, 18 June 2020
  • Binance is an industry leader with the power to pacify or spook.
    Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Consider the prospects the Tigers could have called up in the name of creating buzz or selling tickets or pacifying fans who rightly feel wronged by the product on the field.
    Anthony Fenech, Detroit Free Press, 6 Sep. 2019
  • Combs would not have access to a cell phone or Internet, and there would be a pre-approved visitor log to provide to the court, pacifying the worry of witness intimidation.
    Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 18 Sep. 2024
  • But he was repeatedly rebuffed, in part because of the Russian military’s poor human rights record, particularly in Chechnya, which Putin pacified by destroying its capital, Grozny.
    Sarah A. Topol, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pacify.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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