Search the Dictionary

Habitual freedom from enthusiasm, inordinate passion, or overheated imagination; calmness; coolness; gravity; seriousness; as, the sobriety of riper years. Mirth makes them not mad, Nor sobriety sad. Denham.

To make calm and placid. All that cheers or softens life. Pope.

To assuage; to mollify; to calm; to comfort; as, to soothe a crying child; to soothe one's sorrows. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. Congreve. Though the sound of Fame May for a moment soothe, it can not slake The fever of vain longing. Byron.

Displaying, or affected with, spleen; angry; fretful; melancholy. Myself have calmed their spleenful mutiny. Shak. Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet, Across the bridge that spann'd the dry ravine. Tennyson.

Not disturbed by noise or agitation; quiet; calm; as, a still evening; a still atmosphere. "When all the woods are still." Milton.

The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity. Painting, then, was the art demanded by the modern intellect upon its emergence from the stillness of the Middle Ages. J. A. Symonds.

Still; quiet; calm. The stilly hour when storms are gone. Moore.

Gentle; soft; calm; as, submiss voices. [R.]

To fall into a state of quiet; to cease to rage; to be calmed; to settle down; to become tranquil; to abate; as, the sea subsides; the tumults of war will subside; the fever has subsided. "In cases of danger, pride and envy naturally subside." C. Middleton.

Free from surges; smooth; calm.

Plaesing to the mind; mild; gentle; calm; amiable; winning; presuasive; as, sweet manners. Canst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades Job xxxviii. 31. Mildness and sweet reasonableness is the one established rule of Christian working. M. Arnold.

to qualify, as by an ingredient; hence, to soften; to mollify; to assuage; to soothe; to calm. Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system. Bancroft. Woman! lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. Otway. But th…

Moderation of passion; patience; calmness; sedateness. [R.] "A gentleman of all temperance." Shak. He calmed his wrath with goodly temperance. Spenser.

Not marked with passion; not violent; cool; calm; as, temperate language. She is not hot, but temperate as the morn. Shak. That sober freedom out of which there springs Our loyal passion for our temperate kings. Tennyson.

o put the finishing touch to; to bring to completion; to perfect. During this interval of calm and prosperity, he [Michael Angelo] terminated two figures of slaves, destined for the tomb, in an incomparable style of art. J. S. Harford.

A theologian. Dryden. Ye gentle theologues of calmer kind. Young. He [Jerome] was the theologue -- and the word is designation enough. I. Taylor.

To agitate; to make restless. Calm region once, And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent. Milton.

Quiet; calm; undisturbed; peaceful; not agitated; as, the atmosphere is tranquil; the condition of the country is tranquil. A style clear, tranquil, easy to follow. De Quincey.

To render tranquil; to allay when agitated; to compose; to make calm and peaceful; as, to tranquilize a state disturbed by factions or civil commotions; to tranquilize the mind.

Making tranquil; calming. " The tranquilizing power of time." Wordsworth. -- Tran"quil*i`zing*ly or Tran"quil*li`zing*ly, adv.