placate
UK/pləˈkeɪt//ˈpleɪkeɪt/
placate verb: to calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.
Verb
placate (third-person singular simple present placates, present participle placating, simple past and past participle placated)
- To calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.
- The gleam of the light on the paper placated his professional anger, and he wrote rapidly, the final dash of his signature curling the paper up in a triangular tear.1896, Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, London: T. Fisher Unwin […], →OCLC
- To-day a deity who should require bleeding sacrifices to placate him would be too sanguinary to be taken seriously.1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- pacify, appease, assuage, soothe, conciliate, mollify, propitiate, satisfy
- Antonyms:
- enrage
Adjective
placate (comparative more placate, superlative most placate)
placate meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
placate in Tamil
- அமைதிப் படுத்து, தணித்திடு, சாந்தப்படுத்து
placate in Bengali
- শান্ত, সন্তুষ্ট করা, ক্ষোভ প্রশমিত করা
placate in Malayalam
- ശമിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രീണിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രസാദിപ്പിക്കുക, അനുരഞ്ജിപ്പിക്കുക
placate in Kannada
- ಸಂತೈಸು, ಶಾಂತಗೊಳಿಸು, ಸಮಾಧಾನಪಡಿಸು, ಒಪ್ಪಿಸು, ರಾಜಿಮಾಡಿಸು, ಒಡಂಬಡಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
- placate in Arabic
- هَدَّأَ haddaʔa, اِسْتَرْضَى istarḍā
- placate in Thai
- ปลอบโยน bplòp yohn, ปลอบใจ bplòp jai
- placate in Vietnamese
- xoa dịu
Examples of placate in a sentence
- They turned their shoulders to her most savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placate her wrath.1906 May–October, Jack London, White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC:
- 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.1916, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 3, in Jungle Tales of Tarzan, A. C. McClurg:
- Her [Bari Weiss's] critics — including the “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, Sharyn Alfonsi — saw it as an attempt by CBS to placate the administration.2025 December 23, Michael M. Grynbaum, “‘60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.”, in The New York Times, New...
Synonyms of placate
Antonyms
Forms of placate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | placates |
| present participle | placating |
| past participle | placated |
| past | placated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more placate |
| superlative | most placate |
Origin of placate
First attested in the late 17ᵗʰ century; borrowed from Latin plācātus, perfect passive participle of plācō (“appease, placate”, literally “smooth, smoothen”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more), ultimately thought to be from Proto-Indo-European *plāk- (“smooth, flat”), from *pele- (“broad, flat, plain”). Related to Latin placeō (“appease”), Old English flōh (“flat stone, chip”). More at please.
Words formed from placate
- placatable
- placater
- placating
- placatingly
- placation
- placative
- placatory
- unplacatedn
Words that rhyme with placate
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- mate
- late
- bate
- create
- date
- relate
- vibrate
- wait
- deflate
- fate
- migrate
- rebate
- rotate
- strait
- supererogate
- translocate
- await
- eight
- freight
- skate
- alternate
- collate
- debate
- inflate
- sedate
- update
- compensate
- delate
- dilate
- fixate
- grate
- Haight
- hate
- implicate
- innate
- intercalate
- locate
- mandate
- negate
- overweight
- pinnate
- quadrate
- tate
- vacate
- aerate
- calibrate
- castrate
- conflate
Questions about placate
- What does placate mean?
- Placate means to calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.
- What is placate in Tamil?
- Placate in Tamil is அமைதிப் படுத்து, தணித்திடு, சாந்தப்படுத்து. See Placate meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use placate in a sentence?
- They turned their shoulders to her most savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placate her wrath.
- What part of speech is placate?
- Placate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce placate?
- Placate is pronounced /pləˈkeɪt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of placate?
- The past tense of placate is placated.
Words near placate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: placate (page history and authors); placate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); placate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); placate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); placate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-placate.ogg, en-au-placate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “placate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/placate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.