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Mollify   /mˈɑləfˌaɪ/   Listen
Mollify

verb
(past & past part. mollified; pres. part. mollifying)
1.
Cause to be more favorably inclined; gain the good will of.  Synonyms: appease, assuage, conciliate, gentle, gruntle, lenify, pacify, placate.
2.
Make more temperate, acceptable, or suitable by adding something else; moderate.  Synonyms: season, temper.
3.
Make less rigid or softer.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mollify" Quotes from Famous Books



... state which he is not prepared to overthrow, with his humane impulses and designs. He goes pattering about for a time, remonstrating, and apologizing, and trying 'to smooth down,' and 'hush up,' and mollify, and keep peace between the offending parties. He stands between the blunt, straightforward manliness of the honest Kent on the one hand, and the sycophantic servility and self-abnegation, which knows no will but the master's, as represented by the Steward, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... of spirits, demolishing the augury that his manner had afforded as to the success of the guest's mission, and furthermore, to Nehemiah's trafficking soul, it suggested that a money consideration might be exacted to mollify the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... work it out was by marrying Catherine; but in mathematics there are many short cuts, and Morris was not without a hope that he should yet discover one. When Catherine took him at his word and consented to renounce the attempt to mollify her father, he drew back skilfully enough, as I have said, and kept the wedding-day still an open question. Her faith in his sincerity was so complete that she was incapable of suspecting that he was playing with her; her trouble just now was of another kind. The poor girl had an admirable sense ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... advice to mollify the coachman by another tip, he put on his cap and stood in the middle of the room. The friends kissed once, then again, and after a pause, a third time. The man in the fur-lined coat approached the table and emptied a champagne ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... of food to the best of thy power, forgiveness, sincerity, mildness, and honour to whom honour is due, these constitute a weapon that is not made of steel. With soft words alone turn away the anger of kinsmen about the utter cruel speeches, and mollify their hearts and minds and slanderous tongues. None who is not a great man with cleansed soul and possessed of accomplishments and friends can bear a heavy burthen. Take up this great weight (of governing the Vrishnis) and bear ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... again, I realized the full extent of the risk I had taken. All at once it struck me that no amount of explanation from either Kennedy or myself would serve to mollify Werner if he were innocent and learned of my visit. I doubted, in this moment of afterthought, that I would escape censure from Kennedy, who surely would not want his case jeopardized by precipitate actions upon my part. I began ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... latter, at the first sight of Edward's wild demeanor and gleaming eyes, retreated with all imaginable expedition. Hugh chose a position behind the door, from whence, protruding his head, he endeavored to mollify his inebriated guest. His interference, however, had nearly been productive of most unfortunate consequences; for a massive andiron, with round brazen head, whizzed past him, within a ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Genius than we can pretend to. Terence, tho' reckon'd very genteel in his Days, seems in some place to have a sort of familiarity and bluntness in his Discourse, not so agreeable with the Manners and Gallantry of our Times; which we have mollify'd as well as we cou'd, still making the Servants sawcy enough upon occasion. In some places we have had somewhat more of Humour than the Original, to make it still more agreeable to our Age; but all the while have ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard

... to offer her King that lying story about her sister's death—" His face flushed as though he were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his foster-brother's observation did not tend to mollify him. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... gammoned myself before into such a belief, but—[resolutely] I'll stake everything on my next book! I give you my word that if it isn't a success—an indisputable popular success—I will join you both, in all sincerity, in urging Ottoline to break with me. Come! Does that mollify you? ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... children, and thy mourning lord. See how they grieve, mistaken in their love, 350 And shed a beam of comfort from above; Give them, as much as mortal eyes can bear, A transient view of thy full glories there; That they with moderate sorrow may sustain And mollify their losses in thy gain: Or else divide the grief; for such thou wert, That should not all relations bear a part, It were enough ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... his jesting manner altogether and spoke with the deep earnestness of the expert airing his pet topic. He was so serious that Desmond burst out laughing. It must be said, however, that he laughed as much like a German as he knew how. This appeared to mollify Crook who, nevertheless, read him a long lecture against ever, for a moment, even when alone, quitting the role he was playing. Desmond took it in good part; for he knew the soundness of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... Aunt could do to mollify Tilly, who was enraged to the point of tears. "I've never worn a bustle in my life! Uncle's a perfect FOOL! I've never met such a ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... pump—and says to him: "Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself"—she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy—"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards—the standards that you and I, sir, recognize—to the sometimes too rough ways of ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... "would make drunk the whole jail. A week in 'Mount Rascal' The upper story used for the confinement of felons. will be necessary to transmute you, as they call it, into something Christian. On 'the Mount' you will have a chance to philosophize-mollify the temperature of your nervous system-which is out of fix ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... the Gaul, according to Plutarch (though why he is called by the Spanish name of Pedro, we know not), employed to murder Marius, swearing Par le sang de Dieu, Notre Dame, and Jesu: and towards the close of the play, where a couple of ludicrous characters are introduced, "to mollify the vulgar," the "Paul's steeple of honour" is talked of. Such anachronisms, however gross, are common to all the dramatists of that day. Shakespeare is notoriously full of them; and all must remember the discussion between Hamlet and his friend regarding the children ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... Voltaire acquaintanceship, especially, we shall hear again. With Voltaire, Friedrich himself had no farther Correspondence, or as good as none, for four years and more. What Voltaire writes to him (with Gifts of Books and the like, in the tenderest regretful pathetically COOING tone, enough to mollify rocks), Friedrich usually answers by De Prades, if at all,—in a quite discouraging manner. In the end of 1757, on what hint we shall see, the Correspondence recommenced, and did not cease again so ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... this establishment holds a distinguished place in the literary history of the times. It was at the coffee-house of Du Laurent that Saurin, La Motte, Danchet, Boindin, Rousseau, &c., met; but the mild streams of the aromatic berry could not mollify the acerbity of so many rivals, and the witty malignity of Rousseau gave birth to those famous couplets on all the coffee drinkers, which occasioned ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... of Warburton: 'His abilities gave him an haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperour's determination, oderint ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... It was an excellent occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to mollify its feelings. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it should please him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy will. But until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people." The sultan's answer was hostile ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... Jesus takes him in hand to make him partaker of the benefit, is found an enemy to his redeemer; nor doth all the intelligence that he has had of the grace and love of Christ to such, mollify him at all, to wit, before the day of God's power comes (Rom 4:5, 5:7-10). And this is a strange thing. Had man, though he could not have come to Christ, been willing that Christ should have come to him, it had been something; it would have shewn ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Mr. Pickwick, with the Assistance of Samuel Weller, essayed to soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to mollify the Wrath of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... in a strict historical fashion, but with some approach to poetic licence. However, if any one thinks that I have written more ornately than is warranted by the serious nature of the subject, the remaining portions of the address ought to mollify what one may call the austerity of such a man. I have certainly tried, by varying the character of the style, to get hold of all sorts and conditions of readers, and though I am afraid that each individual reader will not find every single passage to his liking, yet I think I ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... approbation of his family, and had revolted from the Catholic communion. The elder brother, however mortified by this great deed, which passion had prompted, and not conscience, had exerted his best offices to mollify their exasperated father, and to reconcile the sire to the son. But he had exerted them ineffectually; and, as is not unusual, found, after much harrowing anxiety and deep suffering, that he was not even recompensed ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... of rascally slovens! say, couldn't you have gone outdoors to do your dirty work? Do you take my place for a shambles, eh? coming here and ruining the furniture with such goings-on?" Then, as Sambuc endeavored to mollify him and explain matters, the old fellow went on with a violence that was enhanced by his fears: "And what do you suppose I am to do with the carcass, pray? Do you consider it a gentlemanly thing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... five fountains of our Lord's wounds, which are still open, and will remain open till the last day for the cure of all the sores of our souls. And since out of His wounds we receive our spiritual health, let us mollify our wounds with the ointment of mortification and humility and meekness: in all things always employing ourselves for the benefit of our neighbour. Since, though we cannot have our Lord visibly and in presence beside us, we have our neighbour, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte

... respected, but unpopular, by killing, with one lightning stroke of a great fore hoof, a huge mongrel mastiff belonging to the storekeeper. The mastiff had sprung out at him wantonly, resenting his peculiar appearance. But the storekeeper had been so aggrieved that Jabe had felt constrained to mollify him with a five-dollar bill. He decided, therefore, that his favourite's value was as a luxury, rather than a utility; and the young bull was put no more to the practices of a horse. Jabe had driven a bull moose in harness, and ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... market sends in loads of food, They all are tasteless till that makes them good. Besides, 'tis no ignoble piece of care, To know for whom it is you would prepare. You'd please a friend, or reconcile a brother, A testy father, or a haughty mother; Would mollify a judge, would cram a squire, Or else some smiles from court you would desire; Or would, perhaps, some hasty supper give, To show the splendid state in which you live. Pursuant to that interest you propose, Must all your wines ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... city of Greece, Lacedemon, considering that Lycurgus, their lawgiver, was so addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law end civility, it is to be wondered how useless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... by Union men,—Seward imagines he leads them,—by the weak-brained, and by traitors, to save slavery, if not all, at least a part of it. Every concession made by the President to the enemies of slavery has only one aim; it is to mollify their urgent demands by throwing to them small crumbs, as one tries to mollify a boisterous and hungry dog. By such a trick Lincoln and Seward try to save what can be saved of the peculiar institution, to gratify, and eventually to conciliate, the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... lust of a ravisher. He was not only deaf to all her bewailings and entreaties on the road, but accosted her ears with impurities which, having been never before accustomed to them, she happily for herself very little understood. At last he changed his note, and attempted to soothe and mollify her, by setting forth the splendor and luxury which would be her fortune with a man who would have the inclination, and power too, to give her whatever her utmost wishes could desire; and told her he doubted not but she would soon look kinder on him, as the instrument of her happiness, and ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... the room to announce that dinner was ready, Helene severely scolded her. The little maid's head drooped; she stammered out that it was all very true, for she ought to have looked better after mademoiselle. Then, hoping to mollify her mistress, she busied herself in helping her to change her clothes. "Good gracious! madame was in a fine state!" she remarked, as she assisted in removing each mud-stained garment, at which Jeanne glared suspiciously, still racked by ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... worthy sententiously. "Of course," he added, seeking to mollify his victim, over whom he thus domineered, "it ain't just like it is back home on the stove, but you'll have to get used to that, because we're going to live here forever. And," he added, casting a glance of his ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... a change there will be in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth is spent! The boys who bully him will mollify toward him and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bedroom; and that wine will taste more deliciously to them than the best out of the Doctor's cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his most dreadful story and sing ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... course, my dear boy, is perfectly plain. Let your aunt talk as much as she pleases about this divorce, and your union with the little Annie. It won't hurt anybody, and she must talk herself out in time. In the mean time take advantage of the present circumstances to mollify and tone down, so to speak, the good old lady. Make her understand that we are all her friends, and that there is no one in the connection who would wish to do her the slightest harm. This would be our Christian duty at any time, but it is more particularly our duty now. I would like you ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... religious opinions. He wrote a pathetic letter to the king, pleading his past services and protesting his innocence: soon after, he embraced a more proper expedient for appeasing Henry, by making a submission and confession, such as his enemies required; but nothing could mollify the unrelenting temper of the king. He assembled a parliament, as the surest and most expeditious instrument of his tyranny; and the house of peers, without examining the prisoner, without trial or evidence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... long they would have kept me prisoner with their illusive music. I dared not move, scarce wink; for much as immortality may mollify hairiness, I had no wish to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare



Words linked to "Mollify" :   calm, calm down, tranquilize, tranquillize, quieten, tranquillise, quiet, soften, still, lull, weaken, mollification



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