conciliatory
adjective
Colin DeppenDan Balz
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If you are conciliatory towards someone, you're trying to win that person over to your side. The verb conciliate was borrowed into English in the mid-16th century and descends from the Latin verb conciliare, meaning "to assemble, unite, or win over." Conciliare, in turn, comes from Latin concilium, meaning "assembly" or "council." Conciliatory, which appeared in English a bit later in the 16th century, also traces back to conciliare. Another word that has conciliare as a root is reconcile, the earliest meaning of which is "to restore to friendship or harmony."
Synonyms
Examples of conciliatory in a Sentence
Patricia Mazzei, New York Times, 6 May 2024
When raising this issue on Friday, Mr. Xi struck a conciliatory tone.
—Ann Scott Tyson, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Apr. 2024
That conciliatory approach toward House Republicans infuriated many on campus.
—Alan Blinder, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2024
By then, France’s conciliatory approach toward Putin had become untenable.
—Célia Belin, Foreign Affairs, 5 Apr. 2024
Rat says, referring to a conciliatory gesture commonly offered to children.
—Robert Peck, WIRED, 23 Feb. 2024
Nearly nine years later, Hodge's tone is more conciliatory than his 2016 statement to the hearing board.
—Mary Jo Pitzl, The Arizona Republic, 18 Mar. 2024
Now, the official Saudi response to these taunts is muted, and its policy toward its rivals is conciliatory.
—Bernard Haykel, Foreign Affairs, 12 Feb. 2024
Frank Popoff, a chief executive and chairman who tried to make Dow Chemical more conciliatory toward regulators and environmentalists in the late 1980s and ’90s, and who prodded the chemical industry to adopt safer practices, died on Feb. 25 at his home in Midland, Mich., where Dow is based.
—Richard Sandomir, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'conciliatory.' 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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Cite this Entry
“Conciliatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conciliatory. Accessed 18 May. 2024.
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