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Placable   Listen
adjective
Placable  adj.  Capable of being appeased or pacified; ready or willing to be pacified; willing to forgive or condone. "Methought I saw him placable and mild."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Placable" Quotes from Famous Books



... my master, you find you have no cause to apprehend any thing. My Pamela is very placable; and as we have both been sinners together, we must both be included ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... follow him, to arrange themselves in the way he proposed, and without the intervention of a human hand to have raised a wall about his metropolis. [32] It is certainly less difficult to conceive the savage man to be rendered placable, and to conform to the dictates of civilisation, or even wild beasts to be made tame, than to imagine stones to obey the voice and the will of a human being. The example however is not singular; and hereafter we shall find related that Merlin, the British enchanter, by ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... condition that their rights should be fully guaranteed; they renounced none, and even reserved the power of ultimately compelling a failure. On this began a long correspondence, which ended in Grandet of Saumur agreeing to all conditions. By means of this concession the placable creditors were able to bring the dissatisfied creditors to reason. The deposit was then made, but ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... of the Bourbons! On her all the anger, the exasperation, the rage of the people must concentrate! She must bear the blame of all the miseries and the needs of France! She must satisfy the hunger for vengeance, in order that when the lion is appeased it can be made placable and patient again, the chains put on which he has broken in his rage—the chains, however, to which, when his rage is ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... they breath From that great labour, as they bathed their brows With sponges myriad-pored. Comrades and friends With pleading words then drew them face to face, And prayed, "In friendship straight forget your wrath." So to their comrades' suasion hearkened they; For wise men ever bear a placable mind. They kissed each other, and their hearts forgat That bitter strife. Then Thetis sable-stoled Gave to their glad hands two great silver bowls The which Euneus, Jason's warrior son In sea-washed Lemnos to Achilles gave To ransom strong Lycaon from his hands. ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... smiled; it was pleasant to find that, towards her at least, the boys' intention had been anything but unkind, but still she hardly knew how to be placable with Lionel when he had led her brother into mischief, and then left him to bear ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of diamonds means a wedding ring, the king, a fiery but a placable person, of very fair complexion; the ten, money, success in honourable business; the eight, a happy prudent marriage, though late in life; the five, unexpected and most likely good news; the four, a faithless ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... both by the astounding statement and by something unusually placable in her tone. He stared at her as his ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... Quarrelling with her husband one day, on his return from London, where pretty Fanny Lindsay, who kept a coffee-house in the Haymarket, had bewitched him, she never knew peace again. Her temper, never very soothing or placable, got entire possession of her life, and she rained stormy gusts of passion on her guilty lord. He trembled and endured, till he found a razor concealed under his wife's pillow, and then he determined to remove his violent helpmeet to a safe seclusion. By main force, with the aid of accomplices, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... I was governed by a decision of judgment, not to be compared with a mere spurt of resentment. He knew not what it was to feel indignation against vice, and often boasted of his placable temper, and readiness to forgive injuries. True; for he only considered the being deceived, as an effort of skill he had not guarded against; and then, with a cant of candour, would observe, 'that he did not know how he might himself have been tempted ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives: By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; Is placable—because occasions rise So often that demand such sacrifice; More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... of nothing to apprehend—no incursion of your lady friends designing to reason with the proprietor and perhaps hold a prayer-meeting on the sidewalk; no incursion of the police, no row. Everybody is placable and quiet—preserves indeed a sort of deferential attitude toward his neighbor—and not only when he comes in, but again when he goes out, salutes the dame de comptoir—the lady superintendent, that is (not unfrequently the wife of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... despoiled by the robber could be prevailed on to prosecute; on the contrary, they always talked of the event as one of the most agreeable remembrances in their lives, and seemed to bear a provoking gratitude to the comely offender, rather than resentment. All the gentlemen were not, however, of so placable a temper; and two sturdy farmers, with a grazier to boot, were ready to swear, "through thick and thin," to the identity of the prisoner with a horseman who had civilly borne each of them company ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had induced him to turn away and talk with the ladies, when the dispute between the uncle and nephew appeared to grow rather too animated to be fit for the ear of a stranger, but the Earl mingled again in the conversation when the placable tone of the Antiquary expressed amity. Having received a brief account of the mendicant, and of the accusation brought against him, which Oldbuck did not hesitate to ascribe to the malice of Dousterswivel, Lord Glenallan asked, whether the individual in question had not ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... outburst against Abel he afterwards repented, as impolitic, and was soon good friends again with his very placable teacher. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... easily, not be too hard upon, pocket the affront. let off, remit, absolve, give absolution, reprieve; acquit &c. 970. beg pardon, ask pardon, implore pardon &c. n.; conciliate, propitiate, placate; make up a quarrel &c. (pacify) 723; let the wound heal. Adj. forgiving, placable, conciliatory,. forgiven &c. v.; unresented[obs3], unavenged, unrevenged[obs3]. Adv. cry you mercy. Phr. veniam petimusque damusque vicissim [Lat][Horace]; more in sorrow than in anger; comprendre tout c'est tout pardonner[Fr]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... because he knew that to his great and masterly understanding he had joined the greatest possible degree of that natural moderation which is the best corrective of power: that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... statue in Rome, which stands beside the great statue of Apollo from Carthage, opposite to the Circus, with a Greek inscription upon it. His temper is said to have been warm, both in love and in anger, though he was ever moderate and placable in inflicting punishment, while he was never weary in conferring favours, and was always eager to help those upon whom he had bestowed some benefit, preserving and protecting them as though they were the most precious of his possessions. Being ambitious and eager to ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... be called a French Tom Jones in something (but not so much as in the original phrase) of the sense in which Klopstock was allowed to be a German Milton. He has his Allworthy in a benevolent uncle-colonel, peppery but placable; he is far more plentifully supplied than even Tom was with persons of the other sex who play the parts of Black George's daughter and Mrs. Waters, if not exactly of Lady Bellaston. A Sophia could hardly enter into the Kockian plan, but her place in that scheme (with something, one ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... men see the Divinity only on the side most conformable to their present interests. A God always angry would discourage his worshippers, or throw them into despair. Men must have a God, who is both irritable, and placable. If his anger frightens some timorous souls, his clemency encourages the resolutely wicked, who depend upon recurring, sooner or later, to the means of accommodation. If the judgments of God terrify some faint-hearted pious persons, who by constitution and habit are not prone to evil, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... Her skin was but little darker than that of the chief from the far land who is listening to my story. Her eyes were large and bright as those of the bison-ox, and her hair black and braided with beads, brushed, as she walked, the dew from the flowers upon the prairies. Her temper was soft and placable, and her voice—what is so sweet as the voice of an Indian maiden when tuned to gladness! what so moves the hearer to grief and melancholy by its tones of sorrow and anguish! Our brother has heard ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... best friends, if they retorted his wit, or defended themselves successfully against his satire. In dispute he was eager, fierce, unsparing, and often precipitated himself into angry discussions with the Council, which, however, always ended in peace and good humor—for he was as placable as passionate. On one occasion he flew into his own room in a storm of passion, and having cooled and come to himself, was desirous to return; the door was locked and the key gone; his fury overflowed all bounds. "Sam!" he shouted to the porter, "Sam Strowager, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... the Vision, that was true, I wist, True as that heaven and earth exist. There sat my friend, the yellow and tall, With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place; Yet my nearest neighbor's cheek showed gall. She had slid away a contemptuous space: And the old fat woman, late so placable, Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mistakable, Of her milk of kindness turning rancid. In short, a spectator might have fancied That I had nodded, betrayed by slumber, Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly, Through the heads of the sermon, nine in number, And woke ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... father is not placable, where will my Elder-Brother shelter the Beauty whom he has carried away? Have you come to some arrangement ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli

... without Levity; polite, without Affectation; charitable, without Ostentation; religious, without Formality; affable, without Meanness; generous, without View; and hospitable, without Reserve: In their Converse, easy; in their Dealings just; placable in their Resentments, in their Friendship steady:—They have neither the volatile Airyness of the Frenchman, the stated Gravity of the Spaniard; the supicious Jealousy of the Italian; the forbidding Haughtiness of the German; the saturnine Gloominess of the Flandrican, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... Mrs. Mallathorpe. Now that her own scheme had failed, she seemed quite placable to all Pratt's proposals—a sure sign of danger to him if he had only known it. "Better let me know them ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... also promised aid to Godfrey, and allowed his army to encamp near Constantinople. Shortly after, however, the emperor made a move indicating treachery. Godfrey at once sounded the trumpets and prepared to assault the city; but when Alexius quickly sought peace, the placable duke accepted his explanations and assurances of friendship. Then Alexius entertained Godfrey with unheard-of splendor, and soon thought so highly of the knight as to adopt him as a son, according ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... the same unrivalled dexterity, the same command of his subject and his hearers, and the same success. His only faults as a speaker were committed when, under the inebriating influence of popular applause, he was led away by the heat and passion of the moment. A warm friend, a placable adversary, a scholar, a man of letters, kind in his nature, affable in his manners, easy of access, playful in conversation, delightful in society—rarely have the brilliant promises of boyhood been so richly fulfilled as in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... people, a countryman in Phrygia, digging in the fields, was asked what he was doing, "I am," said he, fetching a deep sigh, "searching for Antigonus;" so said many that remembered those days, and the contests they had with those kings, whose anger, however great, was yet generous and placable; whereas Antipater, with the counterfeit humility of appearing like a private man, in the meanness of his dress and his homely fare, merely belied his real love of that arbitrary power, which he exercised, as a cruel master and despot, to distress those under his command. Yet ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... as elsewhere, to oppose Bonaparte. L'Ouverture will have to yield; you know that as well as I do, Monsieur Pascal; and those are the best friends of the blacks who help to render war impossible, and who bring the affair to a close while the First Consul may yet be placable." ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... the people of a man-of-war have been guilty of the maddest vengeance, yet, at other times, they are very placable and milky-hearted, even to those who may have outrageously abused them; many things in point might ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... if the Christians have not helped us to avoid war, how should the pacifists be of use? Those of them whom I happen to know, or to have met, have shown themselves, in the relations of civil life, to be irritable, self-willed, combative creatures, where the average soldier is calm, unselfish, and placable. There is something incongruous and absurd in the pacifist of British descent. He has fighting in his blood, and when his creed, or his nervous sensibility to physical horrors, denies him the use of fighting, his blood ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... eastward-bound traveller from Montpellier in 1764 had to make a northerly detour. The first stone bridge up the Rhone was at Avignon, but there was a bridge of boats connecting Beaucaire with Tarascon. Thence, in no very placable mood, Smollett set out in mid-November by way of Orgon [Aix], Brignolles and le Muy, striking the Mediterranean at Frejus. En route he was inveigled into a controversy of unwonted bitterness with an innkeeper at le Muy. The scene is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... sufficiently Hibernised my taste to luxuriate on Raleigh's root, plain, with salt, I begged them to procure me something more placable to an English appetite. I gave money to my hosts, and they procured me eggs and bacon. I might also have had a fowl, but I did not wish to devour guests to whom on my boat's keel I had given such recent hospitality. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... was frugal, simple, moderate, just, and prudent. Though easily appeased in his enmities, his friendships were deep and permanent; and, though hasty and severe to avenge his friends, he was merciful and placable, when personally injured. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... LORD MAYOR; Mace-Bearer grasped with both hands shaft of his ponderous weapon. Both warriors accustomed to public meetings in Dublin; knew what was expected of them by way of argument. LORD MAYOR happily in placable mood. Readjusting around his neck the collar of gold (the very one "MALACHI won from the proud Invader"), he bowed his head; Mace and Sword were deposited behind doorkeeper's chair, and his Lordship strode in, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various

... be touched, nor could his craft be detained. As the English returned to their boat he bowed and scraped, his mouth grinning, and his countenance wearing at the same time an expression of the most intense hatred. "We may meet again, gentlemen, before long, but perhaps you may not find me in so placable a ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... moiety of the Wasp's crew who survived that desperate fight, many of them smarting with the wounds that they had received—and meanwhile the weather grew ever more threatening, stimulating us all to exertions of which I am confident we should have been utterly incapable under more placable circumstances. Not that there was very much to find fault with at the moment, for it was not exactly blowing hard; but the gusts, which for the last hour or more had been sweeping over us, now from this quarter and anon from that, were steadily growing more frequent and ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... passed away, before Primus had concluded his conciliatory remarks. In fact, the two cronies were too necessary to each other's happiness to allow of a long quarrel, and for all Felix's reverence for his master's "meeting," he was as placable as zealous, nor would the famous festival have been a genuine Thanksgiving without his old friend to help him to discuss its luxuries. They shook hands at parting, and Mr. Qui promised to present the complemens of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... in the village, though we were standing in his doorway and could see the strings of plantains hanging to the roof, and the old women were hard at work cooking. However, when Mr. G. explained who he was, the old man became more placable; and we were soon sitting on mats and benches inside the hut, on the best of terms with the whole village. The life of these people is simple enough, and not unsuited to their beautiful climate. The white men have never interfered much with them; and it has been their pride for centuries ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... soothed, and petted by his idol, recovered his spirits, and, if he pined during her absence, he was always so joyful in her presence that she thought of course he was permanently happy; so then, being by nature magnanimous and placable, she began to smile on her husband again, and a tacit reconciliation came about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... her hair was unbound, gave me the only drubbing I ever had in my life. Lor! how, with her right hand, she fibbed me whilst she held me round the neck with her left arm; I was soon glad to beg her pardon on my knees, which she gave me in a moment, when she saw me in that condition, being the most placable creature in the world, and not only her pardon, but one of the hairs which I longed for, which I put through a shilling, with which I have on evenings after fairs, like this, frequently worked what seemed ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... For the first time that morning he had put off their joint session, and she had not seen him all day. Her mind was now always uneasily aware of him—aware, too, of some change in him, for which in some painful way she felt herself responsible. He had grown strangely tame and placable, and it was generally noticed that he looked older. Yet he was more absorbed than ever in the details of Greek research and the labour of his catalogue. Only, of an evening, he read the Times for a couple of hours, generally in complete silence, while ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... either an absolute necessity, and unavoidable decree; or a placable and flexible Providence) or all is a mere casual confusion, void of all order and government. If an absolute and unavoidable necessity, why doest thou resist? If a placable and exorable Providence, make ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... four young men who had broken the law against carrying arms. 'So long as I live,' he replied, 'every criminal must die.' 'He was inexorable in individual cases; he adhered to his laws with a rigour that amounted to cruelty, while in the framing of general rules we find him mild, yielding, and placable.' Ranke's Popes, ed. 1866, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... and although her wantonness excited him to vengeance, he could not withstand this affecting appeal. With a placable countenance he raised her from the ground, and consoled her as well as he could, telling her, among other things, that as he knew of no punishment adequate to the magnitude of her folly, he would suspend the consideration of that matter for the present; and as he thought that fortune had not ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... exact that respect for our persons, and that deference for our authority, which we naturally covet; we less sensibly feel a slight, and less hotly resent it; we grow less irritable, less prone to be dissatisfied; more soft, and meek, and courteous, and placable, and condescending. We are not literally required to practise the same humiliating submissions, to which our blessed Saviour himself was not ashamed to stoop[102]; but the spirit of the remark applies to us, "the servant is not greater than ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... seems to mean that those who had not received benefit from the teaching of the four previous Buddhas, that even these were placable and well-disposed.] ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... better manners, or wast i' the stocks, where every prying impertinent should be," replied Conrad, being in no very placable humour with his morning's work. The stranger laughed, not at all abashed by this ill-mannered, testy rebuke, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... are you draining the nectar of the Loves, rash drinkers of the strong unmixed wine of beauty? let us run far away, as far as we have strength to go, and in calm I will pour sober offerings to Cypris the Placable. But if haply there likewise I be caught by the sting, be you wet with chill tears and doomed for ever to bear deserved pain; since from you, alas! it was that we fell into ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... impression of a very busy, human, energetic man of letters, a good Churchman, and a good citizen, brimful of likes and dislikes, and waving his red beard often as a flag of battle in many a hot skirmish, especially with J.R.G., but always warm-hearted and generally placable—except in the case of James Anthony Froude. The feud between Freeman and Froude was, of course, a standing dish in the educated world of half a century ago. It may be argued that the Muse of History has not decided the quarrel quite according to justice; that Clio has shown herself something ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bear it; and intruding a Canon into a Cathedral, which does not want it; and this is the Prelate by whom the proposed reform of the Church has been principally planned, and to whose practical wisdom the Legislature is called upon to defer. The Bishop of London is a man of very great ability, humane, placable, generous, munificent; very agreeable, but not to be trusted with great interests where calmness and judgment are required: unfortunately, my old and amiable school-fellow, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has melted away before him, and sacrificed that wisdom ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... a man of letters and nothing else. Not unsuccessfully; but at the same time with distinctly qualified success. He was not turned out of doors; nor were the supplies, as in Quinet's case only a few months later, absolutely withheld even for a short time. But his mother (who seems to have been less placable than her husband) thought that cutting them down to the lowest point might have some effect. So, as the family at this time (April 1819) left Paris for a house some twenty miles out of it, she established her eldest son in a garret ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... though neither chose to intrust them, to him, confided implicitly in her discretion and his honour. As a man, there was little to blame and much to revere in the character of Evellin. He was open, impetuous, brave, generous, and placable, with a noble simplicity of soul, untainted by the mean alloy of selfishness. He was a Christian too. In Dr. Beaumont's eye, that was an indispensable requisite. Yet more, he steadily adhered to the established church with enlightened affection; and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... market at which you have aimed it. For example, those writers who have both sold to and had scripts rejected by the editor who looks after the wants of such a comedy team as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew know that if a script does come back from them it is seldom "placable" anywhere else. For markets such as this, the fact that a synopsis only is usually called for is a real benefit to the writer, saving him much time and disappointment in the event ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... time? Bind me by what vows you please; if vows are unnecessary to secure constancy, they may yet prevent suspicion." Ravenswood pleaded, apologised, and even kneeled, to appease her displeasure; and Lucy, as placable as she was single-hearted, readily forgave the offence which his doubts had implied. The dispute thus agitated, however, ended by the lovers going through an emblematic ceremony of their troth-plight, of which the vulgar still ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... the first time the beauty and holiness of his life. His death, therefore, did what his life had not done. We, misled by a false theology, imagine Paul to be speaking of some transcendental transaction in the spiritual world by which the death of Jesus acted on God's mind to make him placable; whereas, in truth, he is speaking of the simple historic fact that the death of Christ did draw men to his religion, and so to God; did, therefore, bring them to see God's forgiving love; did unite them with each other. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... the attempt: and would have proceeded to inflict the same punishment on Raleigh himself, had not Lord Thomas Howard interposed with his good offices, and persuaded Raleigh, though high-spirited, to make submissions to the general. Essex, who was placable, as well as hasty and passionate, was soon appeased, and both received Raleigh into favor, and restored the other officers to then commands.[*] This incident, however, though the quarrel was seemingly accommodated, laid the first foundation of that violent animosity which afterwards ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... a Court of Honour, to which the two young men would leave the task of their reconciliation. Unfortunately they began by approaching Lieut. Feraud, on the assumption that, having just scored heavily, he would be found placable ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... his rage over Hannah's latest offence had cooled, behaved to his aunt much as he had done before it. He was made placable by his secret hopes, and touched by Reuben's advances—though of these last he took no practical account whatever; and he must wait for his letter. So he went back ungraciously to his daily tasks. Meanwhile he and Louie, on the strength of the great ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... run off from him for the fourth time with "another gentleman!" He vowed that though he had taken her back three times, he never would receive her more; yet I venture to say, that when the false fair one presents herself, she will find him placable; he is evidently in such distress at having no woman to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... him, as her aunt entered the room. Mrs. Farnaby's interference, following on the earlier events of the day, had touched the young lady's usually placable temper in a tender place—and Amelius ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... outcast in the woods, Thenceforth with beasts to herd! More lief were I To take the lioness to my bed and board Than house a rebel wife.' Remembering then The mildness of his Queen, King Ethelbert Resumed, appeased, for placable his heart; 'But she no rebel is, and this I deem Fair auspice for her Faith.' A little breeze Warm from the sea that moment softly waved The standard from its staff, and showed thereon The Child Divine. ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... cannot of course be taught by rules merely, but a great degree of urbanity and kindness is everywhere shown, whether owing to the naturally placable disposition of the people, or to the effects of their early instruction in the forms of politeness." (Mid. Kingdom, II. 68.) As regards the "ornate style of speech," a well-bred Chinaman never says I or ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... number of the house, and carefully repeated it, whilst Polly turned away as if the conversation did not interest her. Thereupon Mr. Gammon bade them good night, and went his way, marvelling that Polly Sparkes had all at once become so placable. Was it a stratagem to throw him off his guard and bring him into the clutches of some avenger one of these nights? One never knew what went on in the minds of such ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... bitter remark or two in the Memoirs against the perfect Conway. With ladies, indeed, Walpole succeeded better; and perhaps we may accept, with due allowance for the artist's point of view, his own portrait of himself. He pronounces himself to be a 'boundless friend, a bitter but placable enemy.' Making the necessary corrections, we should translate this into 'a bitter enemy, a warm but irritable friend.' Tread on his toes, and he would let you feel his claws, though you were his oldest friend; but so long as you avoided his numerous tender points, he showed a genuine capacity ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... spirits, they care not what violent tragedies they stir, nor how they play fast and loose with a poor gentleman's fortunes, to get their own. Marry, these rich fellows that have the world, or the better part of it, sleeping in their counting-houses, they are ten times more placable, they; either fear, hope, or modesty, restrains them from offering any outrages: but this is nothing to your followers, you shall not run a penny more in arrearage for them, an ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They are not a revengeful people. They do not cherish the memory of injuries and await opportunities of repayment; that trait is foreign to their character. On the contrary, they are exceedingly placable and bear no malice. Moreover, they are very submissive, even to the point of being imposed upon. In fact, they are decidedly a timid people in the matter of personal encounter. In all these characteristics they differ from the North American ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... tone or a right colour, or made a dexterous stroke with his brush. And, again, painters may work out of doors; and the fresh air, the deliberate seasons, and the "tranquillising influence" of the green earth, counterbalance the fever of thought, and keep them cool, placable, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that she was enabled to dissimulate sufficiently to render her society indispensable to the King, and to accept with a good grace the equivocal honours of her position. Her brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, was, however, less placable; he had always affected to believe in the validity of her claim upon the King, and his naturally restless and dissatisfied character led him, under the pretext of avenging her wrongs, to enter into a conspiracy which had recently been formed against the person ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... familiarity on the part of those who might be her associates in her present situation, but could not be well termed her equals. She was by nature mild, pensive, and contemplative, gentle in disposition, and most placable when accidentally offended; but still she was of a retired and reserved habit, and shunned to mix in ordinary sports, even—when the rare occurrence of a fair or wake gave her an opportunity of mingling with companions ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... of British policy in matters of this nature. When there has been provocation, you ought to be ready to listen to terms of reconciliation, even after war has been made. This you ought to do, to show that you are placable; such policy as this would doubtless be of the greatest benefit and advantage to you. Look to the case of Sujah Dowlah. You had, in the course of a war with him, driven him from his country; you had not left him in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Philip's knavish ears, and he wrote in haste to his confederate, "the devil is loose; take care of yourself," an admonition which John was quite likely to obey. His hope of seizing the crown vanished. There remained to meet his placable brother with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... struggled with me for my hat, and whirled R——- before it like a feather. The people in the public square seemed much diverted at our predicament, being, I suppose, accustomed to these rude blasts in their mountain-home. However, the wind blew in momentary gusts, and then became more placable till another fit of fury came, and passed as suddenly as before. We walked out of the same gate through which we had entered,—an ancient gate, but recently stuccoed and whitewashed, in wretched contrast to the gray, venerable wall ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... this youthful sultana with Ayxa la Horra, the virtuous mother of Boabdil, and the disasters to which her ambitious intrigues gave rise, the placable spirit of Boabdil bore her no lasting enmity. After the death of his father he treated her with respect and kindness, and evinced a brotherly feeling toward her sons Cad and Nazar. In the capitulations for the surrender of Granada he took care of her interests, ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should recognise these virtues in yourself. But in the meanwhile, dear boy, I own myself incapable of joining. I was neither born nor bred as a detective, but as a placable and very thirsty gentleman; and, for my part, I begin to weary for a drink. As for clues and adventures, the only adventure that is ever likely to occur to me will be an ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... rather for his mother, Dr. May was very sorry, and had even interceded for his pardon; but Dr. Hoxton, though slow to be roused, was far less placable than the other doctor, and would not hear of anything but the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... easily placable if easily roused, started willingly enough on a congenial topic. And thus Adrian conceived his first impression of that romantic being whose deeds have remained legendary in the French west country, and who was destined to exercise so strong an ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... ministers. His temper and his understanding, eminently fitted him to act as mediator. Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the worldly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... their visitors prisoners all that night, and whatever might have been the construction the Tetons placed on their act, they themselves by dawn were far more placable. Continually they motioned that the whites should come ashore, that they must stop, that they must not go on further up the river. But when all was prepared for the start on the following morning, Lewis ordered the great cable of the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... flinched before danger, sickness, suffering or death. He was prompt, resolute and cool in the face of danger. He had a warm and affectionate heart. He loved his comrades, especially the youth who were under his command. He had that gentle and placable nature which so often accompanies great courage. He was incapable of a permanent anger. He was still less capable of revenge or of willingness to inflict injury ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... outward and inward,"—why, what on earth does this vague generality do for us? What of God? Is he or it one or many? of infinite attributes or finite? of goodness and mercy equal to his power, or not? What is his will? How is he to be worshipped? Have we offended him? Is he placable or not? Is he to be approached only through a mediator of some kind, as nearly all mankind have believe but which Mr. Parker denies,—a queer proof, by the way, of the clearness of the internal oracle, if he be right,—or is he to be approached, as Mr. Parker believes, and Mr. Newman ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... spoke as she had directed, when the King, who was of a placable disposition, though somewhat ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... Grandmamma was placable; Gilbert's white face and red eyes were pleading enough, and she was distressed at Mrs. Kendal having come out, looking pale and tired. If she had been alone, the only danger would have been that the offence would be lost in petting; but Maria had been ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he kneeled gracefully down. "Thou hast it, George," said the placable Prince. "I believe thou wilt be sooner tired of offending than I ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Placable" :   conciliable, appeasable, mitigable



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