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.
  • Still the boy would not be pacified.
    — Danielle Parker, CBS News, 15 Feb. 2026
  • Because this is not a street brawl where the two sides need to be pacified.
    — Dan Perry, Newsweek, 3 Jan. 2025
  • The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.
    — Anthony Leonardi, Washington Examiner, 10 Feb. 2020
  • In September, the army was called in to help pacify the streets.
    — Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2018
  • When my co-worker tried to help, the woman began yelling at her and could not be pacified.
    — Courtenay Rudzinski, The Christian Science Monitor, 20 Nov. 2024
  • There are always crises to manage and factions to pacify.
    — Silas Allen, Dallas Morning News, 24 Mar. 2026
  • People gently caressed his head to pacify the man who seemed to be in his 60s.
    — Amanat Khullar, Quartz India, 28 Feb. 2020
  • No, Young’s lyrics won’t pacify your panic after smoking too much weed.
    — The Fresh Toast, chicagotribune.com, 28 July 2019
  • So there is a lot of pacifying that kind of goes into that relationship as well.
    — Quartz Staff, Quartz, 9 May 2023
  • The government cut a number of economic crimes from the list to pacify them.
    — Natasha Khan, WSJ, 16 June 2019
  • To pacify these spirits and ward off trouble, people would leave out offerings of food.
    — Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Sep. 2024
  • If Chong is an excessive groomer, he might be stressed out and grooming to pacify himself.
    — Joan Morris, Mercury News, 12 May 2025
  • Binance is an industry leader with the power to pacify or spook.
    — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 9 Nov. 2022
  • 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
  • The concession failed to pacify left-wing unions, which are calling for nationwide protests next week.
    — Noemie Bisserbe, WSJ, 24 Jan. 2020
  • Her younger sister, meanwhile, pacifies their father with silence.
    — Adam Solomons, IndieWire, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Parents of kids who act out may turn to electronic devices to pacify their children’s outbursts.
    — Paul L. Morgan, The Conversation, 12 Jan. 2021
  • During our first quarantine week, my wife and I tried many frivolous shows to pacify us.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 9 Apr. 2020
  • The Globetrotters paid me some extra money to keep him pacified with his singing.
    — David Aldridge, The Athletic, 11 Feb. 2025
  • At the time, Oosthuizen was simply trying to pacify his children on an airplane.
    — Karen Crouse, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2017
  • 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
  • The presence of a baby was pacifying; the baby had behaved well the whole trip, lulled by its ingenious crib.
    — Yiyun Li, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
  • 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
  • Like every Starbucks, this one has tables and chairs and coffee and pastries and a pacifying sort of vibe.
    — Ellen Cushing, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2025
  • Hart said her daughter screams and yells uncontrollably and needed to be pacified with the cellphone, police said.
    — Jesse Leavenworth, Courant Community, 14 May 2018
  • 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
  • Now the Red Sox must pivot and find a way to pacify a livid fan base less than one month before spring training begins.
    — Jen McCaffrey, New York Times, 11 Jan. 2026
  • 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

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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