soothe

CEFRC1

/suːð/

verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To calm someone or reduce pain or worry.

  2. 02

    verb

    Extra detail

    To allay; assuage; mitigate; soften.

Examples

  • A gift of cheesecake is apparently good to soothe discord.

  • I tried to soothe the child.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
4
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To smooth over; render less obnoxious.

  2. To restore to ease, comfort, or tranquility; relieve; calm; quiet; refresh.

  3. To calm or placate someone or some situation.

More examples

In context

  • This medicine will soothe your headache.

  • Muſick has Charms to ſooth a ſavage Breaſt, To ſoften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.

  • Yet Wayne Rooney scored at a good time, three minutes after the restart, to soothe any gathering nerves and the night can ultimately be chalked off as one of the finest occasions of Hodgson's 17 months in the job.

Synonyms

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The cool gel helped to blank the burning sensation from the sunburn.

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Nearby

Origin

verb

From Middle English sothen (“to verify, prove the validity of”), from Old English sōþian (“to verify, prove, confirm, bear witness to”), from Proto-West Germanic *sanþōn, from Proto-Germanic *sanþōną (“to prove, certify, acknowledge, testify”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- (“to be”). Cognate with Danish sande (“to verify”), Swedish sanna (“to verify”), Icelandic sanna (“to verify”). See also sooth. Displaced Old English frēfran, ġefrēfran (“to comfort, console, soothe”), and partially displaced Old English stillan, ġestillan (“to calm, become calm, pacify, quieten”) (whence modern still). The semantic evolution of "to verify, prove the validity of" → "to comfort" (first attested in the l...