pacification
Britishnoun
Other Word Forms
Explanation
Pacification is an attempt to create or maintain peace. That can mean appeasing a hostile country through diplomacy or even just by settling an argument. A pacifist is someone who is against fighting and wars. That can help you remember that pacification is a means — usually carried out by a government — to keep the peace or end a conflict. If two countries are having a war of words that could escalate, one country could use foreign aid (money) as a means of pacification. If a country is battling a revolution from within, stopping the insurgency can also be called pacification.
Vocabulary lists containing pacification
"Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell
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myPerspectives 10.3
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Excerpts from "Things Fall Apart"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As policing theorist Mark Neocleous has argued, pacification is the production of order by the very forces that create the danger they claim to manage.
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
Speaking in Madrid, Sanchez says the deployment could happen "once we can see how to advance this task of pacification."
From Barron's ● Jan. 8, 2026
“We have to move forward little by little until we achieve the pacification of the entire country,” says Senator Salagado.
From BBC ● May 22, 2024
As governor, Sandoval entrusted Nayarit’s pacification to his acting attorney general, Edgar Veytia.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2022
There was another outfit doing a pacification project a few kilometers from us, and the chopper that had picked them up was waiting with our chopper.
From "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
