How to Use placate in a Sentence

placate

verb
  • The angry customer was not placated by the clerk's apology.
  • The administration placated protesters by agreeing to consider their demands.
  • And the draft that has emerged appears to try to placate both.
    Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News, 22 June 2017
  • The second call was meant to placate Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6.
    Lolita C. Baldor, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Sep. 2021
  • The twins are then clothed, fed, and adorned to placate the spirit of the deceased.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Feb. 2023
  • That’s not true — but once again, the city wants to placate adults at the expense of children.
    Christine M. Flowers, Philly.com, 22 Mar. 2018
  • The second column seemed to placate most of those angered by the first, but not all.
    Creg Stephenson | Cstephenson@al.com, al, 8 Nov. 2022
  • My plan was to use an assumed name but even this doesn't placate him.
    Carolyn Hax, oregonlive, 27 Oct. 2019
  • There was no base to placate or excite in the hours of Charlottesville.
    CBS News, 7 June 2019
  • The other women cooed and hummed to try to placate her curly-haired toddler.
    New York Times, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Wellington tries to placate her, but Keane isn't having any of it.
    Ethan Renner, baltimoresun.com, 14 Feb. 2018
  • There, the town chief tried to placate the armed visitors with money and a prized cow.
    Jeremy Roebuck, Philly.com, 22 June 2018
  • But one look at the forthcoming movie’s cast should placate even the most doubtful mind.
    Estelle Tang, Vogue, 21 Nov. 2019
  • But that did little to placate those who want the artwork removed.
    Isabel Debre, The Seattle Times, 14 Jan. 2019
  • Back in the car, Arce decided to change tactics and stop trying to placate the man.
    Tricia Nadolny, USA TODAY, 4 Sep. 2019
  • The apologies did little to placate those calling for Moore's job.
    Jordan Culver, USA TODAY, 3 June 2020
  • Maybe that deal has to be kept private, in order to placate Ukraine's leaders.
    Joel Mathis, The Week, 8 Dec. 2021
  • Trump, placated, agreed to the arrangement, and stood down.
    Murray Waas, Vox, 9 Nov. 2018
  • Many of Change’s largest clients were kept in the dark or offered vague bromides to placate them while their systems were down.
    Erika Fry, Fortune, 23 Apr. 2024
  • But Downtown isn't taking that risk to placate one of its staff writers.
    Tom Roland, Billboard, 20 June 2018
  • To placate critics, the board had promised to tweak a pilot program 60 high schools across the country are teaching this year.
    Robert Higgs, cleveland, 1 Feb. 2023
  • Erstwhile rock and roll rebels have cleaned up their acts to placate censors or been sidelined.
    Reuters, Fortune, 27 Jan. 2017
  • Will a Super Bowl ring be enough to placate Ajayi for another year?
    Adam H. Beasley, miamiherald, 5 Feb. 2018
  • Ms Patel’s trip to the seaside was an attempt to placate such critics.
    The Economist, 15 Aug. 2020
  • Critics said the ban was long overdue and done to placate protesters.
    Lyndsay Winkley, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 May 2021
  • On the road below, guards tried to placate a group begging for drinking water.
    Molly Hennessy-Fiske, latimes.com, 4 Aug. 2017
  • The invitation to join the MSTF placated the concerns of postal workers for a time.
    Popular Science, 14 Apr. 2020
  • But Peikoff seemed to indicate that Parler would make more changes to placate the tech giant.
    Nicolás Rivero, Quartz, 11 Mar. 2021
  • In the original, a gay Taiwanese man living in New York with his boyfriend marries a Chinese woman in order to placate his parents.
    Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2024
  • In Walz, Harris found a reliable avatar who placated most of the Democratic Party’s blocs.
    Philip Elliott, TIME, 6 Aug. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'placate.' 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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