tranquilize

present singular third person tranquilizes · participle present tranquilizing · participle past tranquilized · past tranquilized · alternative tranquillize · alternative tranquilise · alternative tranquillise

1. transitiveTo calm (a person or animal) or put them to sleep using a tranquilizer dart.

   The escaped lion was finally tracked down, tranquilized, and safely returned to the zoo.

   2 more examples

   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

   Synonyms: dart, sedate

2. literarytransitiveTo make (something or someone) tranquil.

   1779, Frances Burney, Evelina, Dublin: Price, Corcoran et al., Volume 2, Letter 14, p. 87, […] with words of sweetest kindness and consolation, he soothed and tranquilised me.

   5 more examples

   […] 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

   Supported by an impregnable sense of justice but still dangerously fuming, Lucia went back to her garden-room, to tranquillize herself with an hour’s practice on the new piano.

   1931, E. F. Benson, chapter 4, in Mapp and Lucia

   But time had tranquillized Dina’s worries about the landlord.

   1995, Rohinton Mistry, chapter 11, in A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, page 497

   Synonyms: appease, calm, pacify

3. intransitiveobsoleterareTo become tranquil.

   Seest thou not, that this unseasonable gravity is admitted to quell the palpitations of this unmanageable heart? But still it will go on with its boundings. I’ll try, as I ride in my chariot, to tranquillize.

   1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter I”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume V, London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC, page 11

   Synonyms: calm down, relax

4. transitiveTo dart (a person or animal) with a sedative

   The bear should go down several minutes after being tranquilized.

   1 more example

   Moose should only be down about 15 to 20 minutes after being tranquilized.

   2004 March 15, Laura Hancock, Deseret News