Definitions

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

  • noun The act of pacifying or the condition of being pacified; appeasement.
  • noun Reduction, as of a rebellious district, to peaceful submission.
  • noun Practical measures or policy aiming to effect this type of submission.
  • noun A peace treaty.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of pacifying or reducing to a state of peace; appeasement; reconciliation; the establishment of peaceful relations or of a condition of peace.

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

  • noun The act or process of pacifying, or of making peace between parties at variance; reconciliation.

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

  • noun The process of pacifying.
  • noun The process of calming, settling and taking control over an object, person or situation.

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

  • noun the act of appeasing someone or causing someone to be more favorably inclined
  • noun actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency
  • noun a treaty to cease hostilities

Etymologies

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Examples

  • With Rio gearing up to host the 2014 World Cup final and the 2016 Olympics, authorities have embarked upon a so-called "pacification" scheme, permanently occupying over a dozen slums and evicting the drug traffickers' private armies.

    Life and death in Rio's drug wars 2011

  • Another important element of the pacification was the maintenance of freedom.

    The indigenous past of Zacatecas 2008

  • Another important element of the pacification was the maintenance of freedom.

    The indigenous past of Zacatecas 2008

  • Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

    ideonexus.com »2004» Maj 2004

  • Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

    ideonexus.com 2004 »Mayıs» 2004

  • Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

    ideonexus.com »2004» tháng 2004

  • Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

    ideonexus.com » 2004 » 5月 2004

  • Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

    ideonexus.com » 2004 » 5月 2004

  • And here they were part of something euphemistically called a pacification operation, a dreadful word that the French first claimed in Algeria, I believe, in describing that war, which involved very, very good programs -- building clinics and helping Vietnamese.

    Flashbacks On Returning to Vietnam 1990

  • But the news of the governor-general's arrival struck them with consternation, and vakeels were sent to Agra, to learn on what terms a pacification might yet be effected.

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 Various

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