Library / English Dictionary

RECONCILE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bring into consonance or accord

Example:

harmonize one's goals with one's abilities

Synonyms:

harmonise; harmonize; reconcile

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "reconcile" is one way to...):

adjust; correct; set (alter or regulate so as to achieve accuracy or conform to a standard)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "reconcile"):

key (harmonize with or adjust to)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

reconciler (someone who tries to bring peace)

reconciliation (getting two things to correspond)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make (one thing) compatible with (another)

Example:

The scientists had to accommodate the new results with the existing theories

Synonyms:

accommodate; conciliate; reconcile

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "reconcile" is one way to...):

harmonise; harmonize (bring (several things) into consonance or relate harmoniously)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

reconciliation (getting two things to correspond)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Accept as inevitable

Example:

He resigned himself to his fate

Synonyms:

reconcile; resign; submit

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "reconcile" is one way to...):

accept (consider or hold as true)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody PP

Sense 4

Meaning:

Come to terms

Example:

After some discussion we finally made up

Synonyms:

conciliate; make up; patch up; reconcile; settle

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "reconcile" is one way to...):

agree; concord; concur; hold (be in accord; be in agreement)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "reconcile"):

appease; propitiate (make peace with)

make peace (end hostilities)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

reconciliation (the reestablishing of cordial relations)

Credits

 Context examples: 

"There is hardly any personal defect," replied Anne, "which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

However, when she had a while seen my behaviour, and how well I observed the signs her husband made, she was soon reconciled, and by degrees grew extremely tender of me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Catherine listened with astonishment; she knew not how to reconcile two such very different accounts of the same thing; for she had not been brought up to understand the propensities of a rattle, nor to know to how many idle assertions and impudent falsehoods the excess of vanity will lead.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

But it is done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment's uneasiness can ever occur between us again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“When we had comparatively reconciled Mrs. Crewler to it, we had to break it to Sarah. You recollect my mentioning Sarah, as the one that has something the matter with her spine?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)