Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 6, 2025 is:
mollify • \MAH-luh-fye\ • verb
To mollify someone is to make them less angry. Mollify can also mean "to reduce in intensity."
// The celebrity's statement was intended to mollify critics.
// Time mollified her anger.
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Examples:
"The philanthropic move is likely meant to mollify angry residents who are protesting against the celebrity-filled spectacle being held in their historic backyard." — Madeleine Marr, The Miami Herald, 25 June 2025
Did you know?
Mollify is particularly well-suited for referring to the action of soothing emotional distress or anger and softening hard feelings: the word comes from the Latin adjective mollis, meaning "soft." Mollis is also the root of the English adjective emollient, used to describe something (such as a hand lotion) that softens or soothes, and the noun mollusk, which refers to any one of a large group of animals (such as snails and clams) that have a soft body without a backbone and that usually live in a shell.