subdue

present singular third person subdues · participle present subduing · participle past subdued · past subdued

1. transitiveTo overcome, quieten, or bring under control.

   And when their ſcattered armie is ſubdu’d: And you march on their ſlaughtered carkaſſes, Share equally the gold that bought their liues, And liue like Gentlmen in Perſea, […]

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii

   2 more examples

   Gary Cahill, a target for Arsenal and Tottenham before the transfer window closed, put England ahead early on and Rooney was on target twice before the interval as the early hostility of the Bulgarian supporters was swiftly subdued.

   2011 September 2, Phil McNulty, “Bulgaria 0-3 England”, in BBC

   “It's like the opposite of punk, isn't it?” he said jokingly in 2016 while discussing his influence on other musicians. “I've subdued a generation.” But [James] Blake is not so quiescent after all.

   2025 June 14, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, “James Blake’s fight against ‘free music’”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 12

   Synonyms: restrain, stifle, underbring, behedge, guard, govern, smother, bind

2. transitiveTo bring (a country) under control by force.

   1 more example

   In the run-up to his return to the White House next Monday, Mr. Trump has rattled the world, and America’s neighborhood in particular, with a list of objectives – buying Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, making Canada the 51st state – that treat friendly nations as weak interlocutors and impediments to be subdued.

   2025 January 14, Howard LaFranchi, “In Biden-Trump handoff, a foreign policy shift for a changed world?”, in The Christian Science Monitor

   Synonyms: conquer, underbring