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Placate   /plˈeɪkeɪt/   Listen
Placate

verb
(past & past part. placated; pres. part. placating)
1.
Cause to be more favorably inclined; gain the good will of.  Synonyms: appease, assuage, conciliate, gentle, gruntle, lenify, mollify, pacify.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Placate" Quotes from Famous Books



... onto the dining-room deck they found Alicia deathly white, but with a flaming red mark on her cheek. They found Johnny Simms roaring with rage, waving the weapon he'd been shooting. Jamison was uneasily in the act of trying to placate him. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... after, brought the Elector of Hanover to England, to succeed her as George I. It was not likely that King George would look with favor on his former Capellmeister, who had so long deserted his post. But an opportunity soon came to placate his Majesty. A royal entertainment, with decorated barges on the Thames was arranged. An orchestra was to furnish the music, and the Lord Chamberlain commissioned Handel to compose music for the fete. He wrote a series of pieces, ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... River known of the birth of the black cub they would have beaten their breasts and wailed, "Simla Wallah-Caru," meaning "a Black Phantom has come to haunt us;" and they would have placed offerings of roots and nuts, and calabashes of milk from the milk-palm in the forest to soothe and placate the temper of ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... came to be an editor Of a great magazine, I seemed to feel My courage and my virtue given reward. Now, I should pass on poems, and on stories, Creations of free souls. It was not so. The poems and the stories one could see Were written to be sold, to please a taste, Placate a prejudice, keep still alive An era dying, ready for the tomb, Already smelling. And that was not all. Just as the madam here must make report To Perko, so the magazine had to run To suit the pulp mill. ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... but they yielded to Alloway who was master of the great guns with which they hoped to smash the palisades around the settlements. Complete cooperation between white man and red man was necessary for the success of the expedition, and sometimes it was necessary for one to placate the other. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... was vastly more important than the first to a man who did not hesitate to base his whole polity on the teachings of Machiavelli, legality being looked upon as only so much political window-dressing to placate foreign opinion and prevent intervention, whilst without money even the semblance of the rights of eminent domain could not be preserved. Everything indeed hinged on the question of ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... anything particularly dreadful, the old lady craned her neck to see how the policeman was taking it. When Ernestine fell to drubbing the Government, the old lady, in her agitation greatly daring, squeezed up a little nearer as if half of a mind to try to placate that august image of the Power that was being flouted. But it ended only in trembling and furtive watching, till Ernestine's reckless scorn at the idea of chivalry moved the ancient dame faintly to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... disposed to consider the idea. There was nothing else for them to do. So after an hour or two, Brown and I ventured to descend from our trees, and we went among them to placate them and ingratiate ourselves as ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... course—straight away. The surprising statement by a Labour Member, that the farmers had subsidised the nation to the extent of forty millions a year by selling at less than world-prices, may have helped to placate their champions, who had not quite realised what generous fellows they were, for only a dozen stalwarts carried their protest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... received an intimation from his publisher that the work might grow to a length that would endanger the profits. The author hereupon adopted a course which is itself a proof of how much stranger is fact than fiction. To placate the publisher and set his mind at rest, the last chapter was written, printed, and paged, not merely before the intervening chapters had been composed, but before they had been fully conceived. It ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... tuh let us go free in the mornin'?" asked Ed Harkness, already on his knees, for he wished to placate that uneasy fat boy, who kept raising his gun again and again, as though anxious to press the trigger just a little ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... no wrong, Father, even if you tried; and now good-night. Sleep soundly and fear nothing. On the rare occasions when the good Archbishop was angry with me, I have always managed to placate him, and I shall not fail in ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... mourning, a filmy and diaphanous kind of mourning, beautiful enough to placate the angel Azrael himself. A filmy and diaphanous creature was Mrs. Patton also—one could never have dreamed of so exquisite a black butterfly. She was very sweet and sympathetic, and told Thyrsis ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... the first man to be recognized is Herman Nettinger, a man known to all the assemblage as an anarchist. He had been admitted to the councils on the supposition that the best way to pacify and placate the Anarchistic element was to offer them full representation in the work ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... realized what was at stake. Other countries, moreover, began to take the United States more seriously. The open hostility which they had shown on the first entrance of this nation into world politics changed, on second thought, to a desire on their part to placate and perhaps to win the support of this new ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... obtain them in sufficient number the Port Elizabeth lines had to be swept almost bare, although the supply of the troops round Naauwpoort junction and Colesberg largely depended on that railway. It may, therefore, be imagined how hard it was to placate the zealous civil officials, who, without understanding why it was done, found themselves deprived of the very instruments needed for their work, and had as best they could to make bricks without straw. All the organisation ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... Mrs. Almar deteriorated) and go afterward to the opera. Nancy of course would not have dreamed of crowding three women into her box, so the party consisted of herself and Christine, Riatt, Roland Almar—a pale, eager, little man, trying to placate the world with smiles, and once again Linburne, whose handsome dark head, and curved mouth, half cynical, half sensuous, began ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... allow it—saying that he had thought of something else that was better, which was, to carry the Virgin of the Rosary through the streets, all reciting the rosary aloud. Moreover, in order to make peace with God and placate His just anger, he commanded one day that a general interdict be rung, publishing as excommunicated all those who had in any manner been concerned in the banishment of his illustrious Lordship and the other Dominican religious, and all the officers who had ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... Parliament were making way in a mighty tide. Baltimore was marked for a royalist and a Catholic. If the tide rose farther, he might lose Maryland. A sagacious mind, he proceeded to do all that he could, short of denying his every belief, to placate his enemies. He appointed as Governor of Maryland William Stone, a Puritan, and into the Council, numbering five members, he put three Puritans. On the other hand the interests of his Maryland Catholics ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... the new policy, but remarking that the farmers and some of the committee were so set on it that he doubted his ability to balk them. He finally remarked, however, he might possibly do something, if Edwards, himself, would meantime take a course calculated to placate the insurgents and disarm their resentment. Being rather anxiously inquired of by the storekeeper as to what he could consistently do, Perez finally suggested that Israel Goodrich was going to have a husking in his barn the following ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... smilingly across the table as she addressed her father, offering him not the ingratiating and seductive smile which he was accustomed to see women—his wife among the rest—employ when they wished to placate him. Kate's was the bright smile of a comradely fellow creature who asked him to play a straight game. It made him take fresh stock of his girl. He noted her high oval brow around which the dark hair clustered engagingly; ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... uncorrelated, is to invite fear, apprehension, uncertainty and terror. This undissolved residuum is the nest-egg of superstition. The man who believes that God is the Whole, and that every man is a necessary part of the Whole, has no need to placate or please an intangible Something. All he has to do is to be true to his own nature, to live his own life, to understand himself. This takes us back to the Socratic maxim, "Know Thyself." No man ever expressed one phase ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... for his breakfast at an unusually early hour next morning, for the courage of this resolve to placate, if possible, the hostility of Miss Mapp had not, like that of the challenge, oozed out during the night. He had dressed himself in his frock-coat, seen last on the occasion when the Prince of Wales proved not to have come by the 6.37, and no female breast however furious could fail to recognize ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... and civilized races alike of the incomprehensible factor in the universe which wreaks destruction, that original and ultimate evil which all the world's religions recognize, interpret, and offer to placate—the force that is hostile to man and the happiness ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... doors of the banks, pleading for their little all. Some of them had as much as two dollars stored away! But it was the twenty dimes that deferred slow starvation. Banks kept open through the night. Officials and clerks worked to exhaustion, satisfying demands, hoping to placate the mob and avert the unthinkable results of a riot. Countless soldiers swarmed the streets with fixed bayonets. But the bloodless witch has no claim to one single heart-beat of loyalty from the unpaid wretches who wear the Imperial uniform; and when by simply tying ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... dead against us.... Yes, yes indeed; they believe in education all right, but they ain't in for training lawyers and professors just yet.... No, I don't suppose her school is.... Well, then; see here. She'll be reasonable, won't she, and placate the Cresswells?... No, I mean run the school to suit their ideas.... No, no, but in general along the lines which they could approve.... Yes, I thought so ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... talk again, and they told me that the expeditions had been settled on, and that they would have to go, too. Orders had come from home that they must not fall out with Waldersee. It was highly important to placate the Germans because of South Africa. But the Americans would not go, neither would the Russians, nor yet the Japanese. It was to be a new arrangement. They went on talking in this wise for a long time, and I heard these ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... Judge," is his excuse. Hardin, now counsel for warring giants of finance, listens over the terrapin and birds, to several legal posers regarding Joe's affairs. Woods has wide influence. He is a powerful friend to placate. Hardin, easy now in money matters, looks forward to the United States Senate. Woods can help. He ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... alienated the powerful Viceroy and the auditors, and rendered himself inaccessible to any possible overtures from the more reasonable and moderate men of the opposition, whom it should have been his first duty to placate by every ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... order his execution. Calderon met his fate firmly and with a show of piety on the 21st of October 1621, and this bearing, together with his broken and prematurely aged appearance, turned public sentiment in his favour. The magnificent devotion of his wife helped materially to placate the hatred he had aroused. Lord Lytton made Rodrigo Calderon the hero of his story Calderon ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... Agnani, but were subsequently expelled with great loss of life. The Pope was reinstated, but died shortly afterward from brain fever; he was succeeded by Benedict XI, whom the King of France sought to placate, but unsuccessfully. Within nine months Benedict died, presumably from poison, and Philip, by his intrigues, was enabled to secure the election to the pontificate of Bertrand de Goth, who became pope as Clement V, and was pledged to the service ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the insensible young nobleman into the next room. Hoddan locked the door and pocketed the key as Fani came into view again. She was splendidly attired, now, in brocade and jewels. Ghek had evidently hoped to placate her after marriage by things of that sort and ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... benefits which are attached to sacramentals, and, accordingly lead to a remission of sin and temporal punishment by means of sorrow and satisfaction, which are elicited under the influence of the abundant graces given by God, through the intercession of the Church. They also placate God, so as to render Him willing to grant His favours even though defects exist in the recitation of the Office.... Though these defects are not produced ex opere operato, they nevertheless are real, and are an encouragement to priests, whose human frailty ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... gone to his supper, and the owner of the shop was trying to placate four men who wished to be shaved at once. Reifsnyder was very garrulous—a fact which made him rather remarkable among barbers, who, as a class, are austerely speechless, having been taught silence by the hammering reiteration of a tradition. It is the ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... falling, his face is bruised, his eyes are dull. Sometimes he curses the boys that tease him. Sometimes he tries to smile, in a drunken effort to placate pitiless, ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... virtue's end. It is in this way that almsgiving is reckoned among works of satisfaction in so far as pity for the one in distress is directed to the satisfaction for his sin; and in so far as it is directed to placate God, it has the character of a sacrifice, and thus ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... straightforward, dashing young French prince demanding the right of performing his military duty to the State, had him condemned, tardily resolved to pardon him, and wound up finally by sending him to Clairvaux to placate the criminal bullies of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Following this precept let you act kindly towards the miller and that charity of yours will move him to charity towards you and ye shall yet be steadfast friends." Things went on thus for three days—the monk doing all he could to placate the miller. Nevertheless the miller did not cease his persecution, nor the brother his hate of the miller. On the third day Mochuda directed the brother to confess to him again. The brother said: —"This is my confession, Father, I do not yet love the miller." Mochuda observed:—"He will ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... silent to watch, and one by one they began to smile over the coming scene when Jed and Timothy should discover it, and, worst of all, find out that it was actually directed against them. They would expect severity, or fear, or a desire to placate; but a twinkle—it was more than the school could decide what would happen under such circumstances. No one in that room would ever dare to laugh at either of those two boys. But the teacher was almost laughing now, and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... knife, the infuriated giant with blazing eyes, gave place to the actuality of this gentle, stricken; melancholy little sheepherder, who had no insane desire to avenge himself on any one, much less on Hanscom. Helen's resolution to meet and placate the dreaded Basque gave place to pity and a sense ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... her chair and went to him. Her desire to placate her brother supported her determination to know his precise attitude toward her husband. She placed her hand on his arm and ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... rolled up, was like an ice-box, and the naked babies when laid on the scales shrieked like demons. One male child, I remember, sat up perfectly straight and bellowed his protest with an insistent fury and a snorting disdain at all attempts to placate him that betokened the true son of France and a lusty long-distance recruit for the army. All the children, in fact, although their mothers were unmistakably poor, looked ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... any longer interested in O'Connell. The reporters had left their places and pushed their way into the inclosure before the dais. In the rear of the room O'Brien was vainly engaged in trying to placate the Pearl Button Kids, who were loudly swearing vengeance upon both him and Peckham. It was a scene as nearly turbulent as the old yellow clock had ever witnessed. Even the court officers abandoned any effort ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... chose to wear to-night a black gown that set off wonderfully the soft beauty of her face and the grace of her figure. Jack Kilmeny was to be there later for bridge, and before he came she had to dazzle and placate Verinder, who had been for several days very sulky at having ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... gray and steadfast, but his hair was of that shade of brown which takes the tint of dull copper in certain lights, and he had a temper which went with the red in his hair rather than with the gray in his eyes. Wherefore his attempt to placate his assailant was ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... unfavorable to notions of the deity which at an earlier date were perfectly satisfactory: the older gods have fallen below the common secular level, and can no longer be believed in. Today a deity who should require bleeding sacrifices to placate him would be too sanguinary to be taken seriously. Even if powerful historical credentials were put forward in his favor, we would not look at them. Once, on the contrary, his cruel appetites ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... said Alice, joining with her sister, in an attempt to placate the old salt. "But I became ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... The darkness is peopled with hosts of spirits. On the desolate rocks, in the untrodden jungle, on the dark mountain tops, in gloomy caves, by mad torrents, in deep pools, dwell invisible powers whose enmity he must avoid or whose good will he must court, or whose anger he must placate. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... from the act in extenso but quotes also from the debates in the Colonial Parliament to show that the intention of the legislators was to restrict the native to their reservations or to servitude among the white population to placate the extreme Dutch Party in South Africa. In other words, the Colonial Parliament took the position of Mr. J.G. Keyter, the member for Ficksburg, who said: "They should tell the native, as the Free State told him, that it was white man's country, that he was not going to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... announced unmistakably his intention to preserve neutrality between the belligerents of Europe, and to treat France with impartiality but with a sincere desire for her friendship. Between the lines may be read also an equally sincere desire to placate the opposition and to free himself from all imputation of a bias toward Great Britain and a monarchical system. From the first news of Pinckney's dismissal, President Adams was disposed "to institute a fresh attempt at negotiation": ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... [scientific computation] Output of a computation that may not be significant results but at least indicate that the program is running. May be used to placate management, grant sponsors, etc. 'Making numbers' means running a program because output — any output, not necessarily meaningful output — is needed as a demonstration of progress. See {pretty pictures}, {math-out}, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... to complain of, and no favors to ask. The proposed testimonial was offered, perhaps, under the impression that he was needy or that his feelings were hurt, and the idea seems to have been that in giving him a benefit they would placate any resentment he might harbor and at the same time proclaim their own generosity. Anson, however, declined to be put in the position of a martyr or a suppliant. He replied: 'I refuse to accept anything in the shape of a gift. The public owes me nothing. I am not old and ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... rather annoying to see him trying to placate both women at once. Both women watched him, Hermione with deep resentment and pity for him, Ursula very impatient. He was nervous and apparently in quite good spirits, chattering the conventional commonplaces. Ursula was amazed and indignant at the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... "Long live the King! Down with France and England!" fired a few revolver shots in the air, and bolted. Immediately M. Zaimis hastened to the Legation and expressed his regrets. But that did not suffice to placate the outraged honour of the French Republic. Despite the objections of his colleagues, M. Guillemin had a detachment of bluejackets landed to guard the Legation; and next day a Note was presented to the Greek Premier demanding that the perpetrators of this grave breach of International ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... Marm—not so much," admitted her husband evidently anxious to placate her, for Marm Parraday was her old ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... Stone and every one who supported him, hit upon names that had never before been mentioned but in terms of the highest respect, and divers and sundry complacent gentlemen who attended church quite regularly began to look for a cyclone cellar. They were compromised with Stone and they could not placate Bobby. The four banks that had withdrawn their advertisements, after a hasty conference with Stone put them back again the first day their names were mentioned. The business department of the Bulletin cheerfully accepted those advertisements ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... defeated, Mr. Silas Bingo saw that it would be policy to placate his rival's just anger against him. He called upon him at his office ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... the only fully rational world would be the world of wishing-caps, the world of telepathy, where every desire is fulfilled instanter, without having to consider or placate surrounding or intermediate powers. This is the Absolute's own world. He calls upon the phenomenal world to be, and it IS, exactly as he calls for it, no other condition being required. In our world, the wishes of the individual are only one condition. Other individuals are there with other ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... In Burns' moral poems the author tries to win back the favor of respectable people, which he had forfeited. In them there is a violence of direction; and all violence of direction—all endeavors to please and placate certain people—is fatal to an artist. You must work to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... and future affairs, the chief remedy is to invoke God, endeavoring to placate Him by sacrifice and prayer, and beseeching Him to protect us by His powerful right hand. This duty devolves by special right upon the religious. Our duty is to threaten and strive to correct ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... human sacrifices. But their human sacrifices were merciful compared with ours. What is cutting out a man's heart on an altar to propitiate a god, to hounding him to death through miserable years in a prison to placate the spite of an accuser, the justice of a court, or the grudge of a ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... of the superiority of an enfranchised over a disfranchised class. It was not that the convention had more respect for the workingman, per se, but they feared his vote and so adopted the greenback plank in order to placate him, and then nominated for President the most ultra of gold ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... the thunder of authority, the lightning of royalty," she said; and then, thinking she had done enough to placate his passion, she turned to whisper to Lysidice, "Let us tickle this fool ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... is the use?" she pleaded. "You are acting like a child. You love Richard. You know you love him. You tell me often that you love him! Richard is such a dear boy!" She said this fawningly, with evident intent to placate the sullen young man. Her tone, her air suggested the nervous embarrassment of a debtor who seeks to put off a creditor with flattery and fresh promises. "Now be a darling child and say that we'll have the wedding next week ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... annexation of Texas had rendered him extremely obnoxious to a powerful minority of his own party. After a protracted struggle, Mr. Van Buren, under the operation of the "two-thirds rule," was defeated, and Mr. Polk nominated. The convention, anxious to placate the friends of the defeated candidate, then tendered the nomination for Vice-President to Senator Silas Wright, the close ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... he would discuss business worries with her, which established a community of interest between them. His friendship gave Mavis confidence in her endeavours to placate the female Devitts. This latter was uphill work: Mrs Devitt and her sister entrenched themselves in a civil reserve which resisted Mavis's most strenuous assaults. With Victoria, Mavis believed, at first, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... number did not wish to do even that, and an equally large number fearing that Pompey might renew the strife regarded this as quite enough for Caesar and expected that it would be a fairly simple matter to placate Pompey on account of it. Moreover, when he died, they would not believe this news till late, and until they saw his signet that had been sent. (On this were carved three trophies, as on that of Sulla.) [-19-] But when he appeared to be really dead, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... The chief becomes the tutelary deity or protector of his tribe, or locality over which he ruled. Other chieftains are added to him in course of time, and soon we have a veritable pantheon of gods, good and evil, whom it is necessary to placate by certain offices and functions, very much as it is necessary to covet the favour of powerful men on earth. Whose duty shall it be to perform such rites? Naturally, it falls to the head of the family and the head of the State. They are the born officers of religious functions, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... left of these that had passed, he encountered what was left of one who had not yet passed. Truly had the bush-folk named themselves into the name of the Red One, seeing in him their own image which they strove to placate and ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... no answer. The attitude of hostility and defiance had gone. She looked at him silently, pleadingly, like some helpless dumb animal trying to placate its master's wrath. Brockton glanced at his watch, walked over to the window and then came back to where she stood. Shaking his fist at her, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... others must make the compromise. The Queen then appointed Lord John Russell as Prime Minister and ordered him to form a new Cabinet and give an office to Cobden. Lord Russell tried for four days to meet the issue, and endeavored to placate the people with platitude and promise. Cobden refused all office, and informed Lord Russell that he preferred to help the Crown by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... masterstroke was that the lady gave her a copper and let her go, wishing her a speedy recovery. The gift, although she took it, did not appear to placate Tilda. She hobbled up the next street with quickened pace, now ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... enemy. I had hoped at the Congress at Amritsar—I am speaking God's truth before you—when I pleaded on bended knees before some of you for co-operation with the Government. I had full hope that the British ministers who are wise, as a rule, would placate the Mussalman sentiment that they would do full justice in the matter of the Punjab atrocities; and therefore, I said:—let us return good-will to the hand of fellowship that has been extended to us, which I then believed was extended to us through the Royal Proclamation. It was on that account ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... provinces. Ill-blood had arisen between the two peoples before this, and a Japanese colony had been driven out of Ningpo by force and not without bloodshed a few years previously. Kia-tsing (d. 1567) was not equal to such emergencies, and his son Lung-king (1567-1573)sought to placate the Tatar Yen-ta by making him a prince of the empire and giving him commercial privileges, which were supplemented by the succeeding emperor Wan-li (1573-1620) by the grant of land in Shen-si. During the reign of this sovereign, in the year 1592, the Japanese ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... as the sinking of the Lusitania or Arabic, he warned Berlin, would aggravate the situation beyond his control. That Germany recognized the danger was shown by a further declaration from her Imperial Chancellor on August 26, 1915, wherein he endeavored to placate American feeling by declaring that the sinking of the Arabic, if caused by a German submarine, was not a "deliberately unfriendly act," but, if the accepted version of the disaster proved to be true, was "the arbitrary deed of the submarine commander, not only not sanctioned ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... In the sleeping state this may possibly occur through the negligence of the censor; what has been hitherto repressed will now succeed in finding its way to consciousness. But as the censorship is never absent, but merely off guard, certain alterations must be conceded so as to placate it. It is a compromise which becomes conscious in this case—a compromise between what one procedure has in view and the demands of the other. Repression, laxity of the censor, compromise—this is the ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... efforts we finally managed to placate her, however, and the next evening our shop was the scene ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... evil spirits, or it may be due to a desire on the part of the kalaloa to leave its present abode. In either case the man becomes ill and it behooves him to take immediate steps to placate the evil spirits or to convince his kalaloa to remain with him. This last can best be accomplished by bathing the sick person with water which has been heated in a good agong. A fine dish would do equally well, but ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... should affrightedly tread the earth again as Bunker Bean. Everything pointed to it. Even the golden bees of Napoleon! Were there not three B's in his own name? The shameful truth is that he had been christened "Bunker Bunker Bean." His fond and foolish mother had thus ingenuously sought to placate the two old Uncle Bunkers; unsuccessfully, be it added, for each had affected to believe that he took second place in the name. But the three B's were there; did they not point psychically to the golden bees of the Corsican? Indeed, an astrologist ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... does beat walkin'," commented Washington White, who, after his first fright, appeared to take it all as a matter of course. "But I hopes dat dey's got suffin' t' placate mah inner conscientiousness wid, 'case I'se ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood

... to heal the breach; but, being something of an ass, genus priceless, he finds it almost beyond his powers to placate "the man-eating fish" whom Providence has ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... expression of nature and to which every eye and hand must submit if even a semblance of expression is to be sought for. One of them is truth. In this all schools concur, each one demanding the truth, or at least enough of it to placate their consciences when they add to it a sufficient number of lies of their own manufacture to make the subject interesting to their special line of constituents. Among these I do not class the lunatics who are to-day wandering ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... that it wasn't convincing." He thought it time to placate. "It was neat. I've gave you credit. Sure! You looked great. You looked like a world-beater, in there against Fanchette. But that's just what I'm trying to get at. Oh, Dunham and I talked it over before anybody in this burg knew you were alive. That's what I'm trying to get at. You been ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... placate Mrs. Stanton. "It's only a rout and a rabble, Lana! The feminine element does not belong in it. My father dines his gentlemen and accomplishes his objects. And I think you have become one of these political hypocrites! ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... lacking in chivalry. He hadn't shown himself altogether considerate or even kind. But she challenged him—perhaps unconsciously—and once or twice had come near making him feel small.—Oh! there were excuses for his behaviour! Now however he would sail on another tack. Would placate, discreetly cherish her until she couldn't but be softened and consent to make it up. After all maidens of her still tender age are not precisely adamant—such at least was his experience—where a personable youth is concerned. It only needed a trifle of refined cajolery ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... was generated by those high-handed tactics, whereupon certain slight concessions were made in order to placate the offended delegates; but, being doled out with a bad grace, they failed of the effect intended. Belgium received three delegates instead of two, and Jugoslavia three; but Rumania, whose population was estimated at fourteen millions, was allowed but two. This inexplicable decision ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... glade. It went over Migul's head and fell short of our cage. Migul turned, and a rain of arrows thudded harmlessly against its metal body. I heard the Robot's contemptuous laugh. It made no answering attack, but stood motionless. And suddenly, thinking it a god whom now they must placate, the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... gad! For I'm your Jupiter Most High now, myself; and Salvation, Fortune, Light, Gladness, Joy—they're all this identical I! So mind you placate this divinity ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... at last who he was, and wondered why I had not recognized him sooner—the contractor who had questioned us near the railway encampment along the way, and had offered us directions; but his manner was as different now from then as a bully's in and out of school. Then he had sought to placate, and had almost cringed to Monty. Everything about him now proclaimed the ungloved ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... letter, they'd get curious; you couldn't tell but what they might wrastle with him and grab the letter. In a day or two maybe he could get into Mormons Landing, where he wasn't so well known, and mail it there. To placate Garland he promised him a paper; the man at the store ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... alone. He had already taught them the excellence of letting a sleeping dog lie. Many of the men, who knew that they were in danger of his big bear-paw when it reached out for the honey vats, even made efforts to placate him, to get on the friendly side of him. The Alta-Pacific approached him confidentially with an offer of reinstatement, which he promptly declined. He was after a number of men in that club, and, whenever opportunity offered, he reached out for them and mangled them. Even the newspapers, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... track her round and round a room from which there was no escape. Hamlet, being one of the wisest of dogs, very quickly discovered that Mary hated him. He was not a sentimental dog, and he did not devote his time to inventing ways in which he might placate his enemy, he simply avoided her. But he could not hinder a certain cynical and ironic pleasure that he had of, so to speak, flaunting his master in her face. He clung to Jeremy more resolutely than ever, would jump up at him, lick his hands and tumble about in front of him whenever ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... the landlord was so profoundly touched, when Pereo, not displeased with this evidence of his power over his countrymen, condescendingly offered to click glasses with him, that he endeavored to placate him still further. ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... are different—different as day and night. You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active—to placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear she was pure. ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... and by no means simple department. There were moments, nevertheless, when I approached his presence with a sinking heart. For if I failed to "get round" him in the matter of coaxing another special for a patient, there was Sister to placate on my return to the ward; and it was quite impossible to persuade Sister that she could have made a mistake with her diet sheets, or, if she had, that ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... she called to the huge brute. "Don't you remember me? I am little Meriem. I used to ride on your broad back;" but the bull only rumbled in his throat and shook his tusks in angry defiance. Then Korak tried to placate him. Tried to order him away, that the girl might approach and release him; but Tantor would not go. He saw in every human being other than Korak an enemy. He thought the girl bent upon harming his friend and he would take no chances. For an hour the girl and the man tried to find some means ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... distinction often applies in Indian religion but is less clear there, because both the higher doctrine as well as ordinary ceremonial and mythology are described under one name as Hinduism. But if a native of southern India occasionally sacrifices a buffalo to placate some village spirit, it does not follow that all his religious notions are ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... his favorite topic, the wickedness of the suspension of habeas corpus; was halted by a point of parliamentary law; and when the Senate sustained an appeal from his decision, left the chamber in a pique. Hunter, now a Senator, became an envoy to placate him and succeeded in bringing him back. Thereupon Stephens poured out his soul in a furious attack upon the Administration. He ended by submitting resolutions which were just what he might have submitted four years earlier before a gun had been fired, so entirely ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... to the Virgin. Imperiously turning to her acolyte, she seized the censer filled with copal, and, having lighted it, incensed the figures. Turning to the presidente, she asked whether he were going to placate the saint for invasion by giving aguardiente and candles, both of which appeared, as if by magic, when she was given money. Pouring aguardiente from the bottle into a glass, she poured into the four basins in the ground before the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... placate the kilted officer. He tapped his swagger stick against the side of his leg while he ran his eyes up and down Joe Mauser and the others, as though memorizing them ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... threatened, but Tarzan only grinned at him as he dropped lightly to the lower levels. Here he again approached Teeka only to be again greeted with bared fangs and menacing growls. He sought to placate her; he urged his friendly intentions, and craned his neck to have a look at Teeka's balu; but the she-ape was not to be persuaded that he meant other than harm to her little one. Her motherhood was still so new that reason was yet subservient ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... his early start, and though he left the post feeling that he had gained a friend worth having, Davies did not fully realize how dangerous a thing it was to leave a community of women, none of whom he had sought to placate and some of whom he had offended. Mrs. Darling had declared war against him, and Mrs. Stone, if not Mrs. Flight, was in full sympathy with her. How dare he say they were responsible for Mrs. Davies's ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... me is to surrender my sword to Your Majesty. I am Your Majesty's affectionate brother, Napoleon." Desiring to arrest the butchery and being no longer master, the Emperor yielded himself a prisoner, in the hope to placate the conqueror by the sacrifice. And Delaherche saw General Reille rein up his charger and dismount at ten paces from the King, then advance and deliver his letter; he was unarmed and merely carried a riding whip. The sun was setting in a flood of rosy light; the King seated himself ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... business is bought out something has to be given over and above the old iron value of the concern for the value of the connection and other intangible assets. Wherever an entirely new industry is started it has to meet certain initial expenses. It has to placate, to use the unpleasant American word, various interests in order to get to work, or it has to lay out money, in building up a concern by advertising or otherwise. It is impossible that every penny which is put into it will go into actual ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers

... her intuition could not travel. It was impossible that she should realize how sorely her wish to placate Bower disquieted Spencer. He had seen the two under conditions that might, indeed, be explicable by Helen's fright; but he would extend no such charitable consideration to Bower, whose conduct, no matter how it was viewed, made him a rival. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... German politics a most remarkable whirlpool of discord, in which the policy of von Tirpitz was a severe tax on the patience of von Bethmann-Hollweg and the Foreign Office, for it was they who had to invent all sorts of plausible excuses to placate various ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... monarchy rather than a constitutional republic. As governor the president usually chose prominent men of the locality, either friends whom he wished to reward or opponents or rivals whom he was obliged to placate. The communal chiefs were also appointed by the president, though the governor's wishes were respected to a large extent, and here too men of influence were selected, such influence usually being reckoned by the possession of a devoted following. The section ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... to placate my only friend I almost accepted his offer. But not quite. Some little inherited difference held me back, perhaps. I wonder! At all events, the thing was dropped between us for the time; and, before he left, Ted promised he would tackle a bit of work a Myall Creek farmer had ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... disadvantage of traversing and fighting in the forest had prevented him from sending another punitive expedition. Also had he heard of a white man who had passed through the country. Sakamata, native-like, eager to placate, asserted that he had actually seen the white man who was called Moonspirit, and from the same motive, ever wishing to flatter, announced positively that he had no magic at all, was dark and small and a trader, the only kind of white man other than the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... as parents are entitled to the high esteem and reciprocation of their offspring. It demands of each one of us all that we are capable of producing, exacting the highest order of service as well. The paying of taxes does not placate the demands which society makes upon you. It demands yourself—body, mind, and soul—not in a passive sense, but in active relationship to your environment. And every man is morally bound to respect the claims thus ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... to the delicate frenzy of the dance and his unexpected reconciliation. It was, of course, all Nancy. He could not imagine himself proceeding upon such an affair with anyone else. Still, he found it necessary to placate his conscience for the time taken from the study of Beowulf which he was then making for his Ph.D. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" seemed, after a somewhat desperate search, as sound a principle as any; and, furthermore, he would ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... Chandler a cause of offense in McClellan's elevation to the head of the army.* McClellan was a Democrat. There can be little doubt that Lincoln took the fact into account in selecting him. Shortly before, Lincoln had aimed to placate the Republicans by showing high honor to their popular ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... satisfied the denizens of Cabul, as well as the wild clans en route thither, that a retreat was wisdom. The government of Cabul became uneasy for the consequences, and Dost Mohammed Khan took measures to placate the British government, whose policy was not to pursue the war into Affghanistan. The government of Calcutta annexed the Punjaub to British India, and thus terminated the Sikh war. The governor-general issued, on the 29th of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... necessary courage—or perhaps temerity—is lacking. What is needed is such a clear seeing of conditions, and such an approach, as manifested themselves in the Constitutional Convention of the United States, for in spite of the many compromises that were in the end necessary to placate a public opinion not untouched by prejudice, superstition and selfishness, the great document—and even more the records of the debates—still brilliantly set forth both the clear-seeing and the lofty ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... borrowed the look of the great desert; the feathers of darkness fell later and later, until they began to appear with the dawn, and yet the river failed to rise; the priests went through their perfunctory rites to placate the god of the Overflow, and made their impotent sacrifices to tempt him to bless the harvest; but Hotep saw the Snowless Month, which should have ripened his grain, dawn upon fields that were dried to seas of ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... having suffered such things from his friends, the posthumous Pascal, later, fell into the hands of an enemy. The infidel Condorcet published an edition of the "Thoughts." Whereas the Port-Royalists had suppressed to placate the Jesuits, Condorcet suppressed to please the "philosophers." Between those on the one side, and these on the other, Pascal's "Thoughts" had experienced what might well have killed any production of the human mind that could die. It was not till near the middle ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... the Declaration. It was too forceful for him. He would tone it down, that it might soothe the king, placate the Duke of Monmouth, condone the Indulged ministers, and restore Weir to the ranks. He presented a new Declaration as a substitute for the one already in force. For two weeks, even till the enemy was lining ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... had no time to put questions to so distant an authority. She had Wong to placate—Wong with his wash-day face on, grim, ill-tempered, hurried, defying the world to put even the smallest additional burden on his shoulders on Monday. And Miles ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... all was, that the king was in an unmistakably angry mood. He not only talked fast but he talked loud, sure evidence of his excited feelings. It sounded as if Ziffak was striving to placate him, but his royal brother grew ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... course, by her ministers, in the desire to placate the Catholic party, which holds the balance of power in the Netherlands—dwelt most respectfully on the high functions of his Holiness, etc., etc., indicating, if not saying, that it was not the fault of her government that he was not invited ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... Sir William liked him: and that Lady Franks didn't. One day he might have to seek help from Sir William. So he had better placate milady. Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, he ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... Bannockburn it had been their clan privilege to hold the post of honour on the right. The blundering Irishman assigned this position to the Athole men in forming the line of battle, and stubbornly refused to reform his line. The Duke of Perth, who commanded on the left wing, endeavoured to placate the clan by vowing that they would that day make a right of the left and promising to change his name to Macdonald after the victory. Riding to the Duke with a message from the Prince I chanced on a man lying face ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... placate was quite in vain. The ingenuous little beauty with the child's face and the blue eyes so widely opened fairly panted in her revolt against the ignominy of her position, and was not to be so easily appeased. Her voice came vibrant with disdain. Her level gaze on the Inspector ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... people. God is not asked to forgive because of their repentance or their faith. True, these are the conditions on which His pardon is received by us, but they are not the reasons why it is given by Him. Nor does Moses appeal to any sacrifices that had been offered and were conceived to placate God. But he goes deeper than all such pleas, and lays hold, with sublime confidence, on God's own nature as his all-powerful plea. 'The greatness of Thy mercy' is the ground of the divine forgiveness, and the mightiest plea that human lips can urge. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... presence to think of him as an audacious prevaricator—and perhaps worse. He was so kindly in his manner and speech to her. His brisk consideration for her comfort at all times—his wistful glances for Jerry, the ancient canary, and the tenderness he showed the bird—even his desire to placate Diddimus, the tortoise-shell cat—all these things withstood the growing ill-opinion being fostered in Louise Grayling's mind. Who and what was this mysterious person calling ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... more than did they, but we said that Lake Gladys Doolittle Batt was the first, hoping to placate that ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... conscious that his voice had drawn out in a snuffling appeal, but he simply had to placate this ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... dangerous animals is due (a) to the fear that the soul of the slain beast may take vengeance on the hunter, (b) to a desire to placate the rest of the species. (See ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... resolved to accomplish the desired end by an expedition from Fort Pitt. Pontiac, however, was known to be still plotting vengeance at that time, and it seemed advisable to break the way for the proposed expedition by a special mission to placate the Indians. For this delicate task Sir William Johnson selected a trader of long experience and of good standing among the western tribes, George Croghan. Notwithstanding many mishaps, the plan was carried out. With two boats and a considerable party of soldiers and friendly Delawares, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the fool: between the two women, he had fallen. They had given him power, and he had let it slip through his fingers for the sake of reprisal where it was not needed. Let him go, then, to the treadmill; they were through with him. He had played his game like a tyro. They must placate this young woman whom the people believed was their queen, but who they knew was the plaything of ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... and the things which happened to them. It began in the time of Egbert and Canute, and earlier, in the days of the Druids, when they used peacefully to allow themselves to be burned by the score, enclosed in wicker idols, as natural offerings to placate the gods. The modern acceptance of things is only a somewhat attenuated remnant of the ancient idea. And this is what I have to deal with and understand. When I begin to do the things I am going to do, with the aid of your practical advice, if I have your approval, the people will be ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... desperately lucky chances. Not having attained as yet to a conception of the impersonality of Nature, he regarded these forces which helped and hindered him as friendly and alien powers which it was in the imperative interests of his own welfare to placate and propitiate. It was in this urgent sense of helplessness and need that there were developed the two outstanding modes of communication with the supernatural, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... bluntly. "I don't know that they are your cattle. I don't care. We're using them to make motion pictures. Get outa the way so we can go on with our work." Had he not spoiled several feet of film because of their coming he might have been more inclined to placate them. As it was, he did not welcome their interference, he did not like their looks, and their tones were to his temper as tow would be to a fire. Their half Mexican, half American dress irritated him; the ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... on this chimera of his fancy. He grew grizzled and worn over his self-imposed delusion; he no longer jested with his customers, regardless of quality or station or importance; he had cliques to mollify, enemies to placate, friends to reward. The grocery suffered; through giving food and lodgment to clouds of unimpeachable witnesses before the Land Commission and the District Court, "Mrs. Ros." found herself losing money. Even the bar failed; there was a party of "Blue Mass" employees who drank at the ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Placate" :   lull, placatory, tranquillise, quieten, tranquilize, tranquillize, calm, placative, calm down, placation, still, quiet



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