Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To decrease the size, scope, or intensity of (a war, for example).
  • intransitive verb To decrease or diminish in size, scope, or intensity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb to reduce in intensity (a crisis or a war).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Alternative spelling of deescalate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb diminish in size, scope, or intensity
  • verb reduce the level or intensity or size or scope of

Etymologies

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Examples

Comments

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  • I've seen a few citations of the recent quote by the UN, all of them using a hyphenated version.

    "Observer mission spokesman Neeraj Singh said Thursday the monitor team is establishing contacts and preparing for a larger mission approved by the U.N. Security Council last week.

    'In this process we have a role of de-escalating the situation. We do that - and we did that yesterday in Douma - by maintaining our presence on the ground, patrolling the area for a good number of hours, through our liaison activities.'"

    - VOA News, 'UN Seeks to De-Escalate Syria Situation', voanews.com, 28 April 2012.

    April 27, 2012