Tranquilize Meaning
/ˈtɹæŋkwɪlaɪ̯z/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo calm (a person or animal) or put them to sleep using a tranquilizer dart.
verbTo make (something or someone) tranquil.
Sentence Examples
The doctor had to tranquilize the patient before the procedure.
Tranquilize is the American spelling of the word tranquilise.
The dart was used to tranquilize the escaped bear.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strong medication will ____ the anxious patient before the surgery starts.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The researchers used a dart to ____ the large bear so that they could attach a tracking collar to it safely today.
Word Origin & History
From Middle French tranquiliser. Analyzable as tranquil + -ize.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we’ll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines! Libriums! Stelazines! And with a wave of her sword, blooie! Tranquilize all of us completely out of existence."
— 1962, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, New York: Dial, page 255:
"When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth."
— 1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 2, in Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 13:
"[…] I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose,—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."
— 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:
"This threat, the reader may well suppose, was not very tranquilizing to my feelings."
— 1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter 13, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC:
"The column was placed under the orders of Major Renaud, who pushed up the road; fighting as occasion offered; tranquillizing the country by the very simple expedient of hanging everybody who showed signs of insubordination […]"
— 1865, G. O. Trevelyan, chapter 5, in Cawnpore, London: Macmillan, page 322:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The strong medication will ____ the anxious patient before the surgery starts.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The researchers used a dart to ____ the large bear so that they could attach a tracking collar to it safely today.