reconcile
/ˈrɛk(ə)nsʌɪl
/verb [with object]
1Restore friendly relations between: the king and the archbishop were publicly reconciled she wanted to be reconciled with her father...
- The only good thing to have come from it all was that she was now reconciled with her husband after one of the holidays.
- Re-Connect, a council-run service, assists youngsters in danger of becoming homeless as well as those in temporary accommodation hoping to be reconciled with their families.
- He said the pensioner, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis, had now accepted the affair was over, had been reconciled with his wife and any future offending was unlikely.
1.1Settle (a quarrel): advice on how to reconcile the conflict...
- Can that inherent conflict be reconciled successfully?
- But, this time, he was unable to reconcile internecine squabbles.
- But it would appear that even death has failed to reconcile the feud between her and her son, Richard, who was noticeably absent from his mother's funeral last Saturday.
Synonyms
reunite, bring (back) together (again), restore friendly relations between, restore harmony between, make peace between, resolve differences between, bring to terms;
pacify, appease, placate, propitiate, mollify
rare conciliate
settle, resolve, patch up, sort out, smooth over, iron out, put to rights, mend, remedy, heal, cure, rectify
1.2Make or show to be compatible: the agreement had to be reconciled with the city’s new international relations policy...
- Spencer produced his most challenging work in the struggle to reconcile this religious vision with the reality of the world around him.
- Educators at all levels need to reconcile rigor and creativity, and to treat them as compatible, coexisting dimensions of intelligence.
- Compatibilist philosophies seek to reconcile free will and determinism in a modern time.
Synonyms
make compatible, harmonize, square, make harmonious, synthesize, make congruent, cause to be in agreement, cause to sit happily/easily with;
adjust, balance, attune
rare syncretize
1.3 (reconcile someone to) Make someone accept (a disagreeable or unwelcome thing): he was reconciled to leaving...
- Not very confident of India accepting accession, he was reconciled to a state of permanent political exile in India.
- Representatives of the licensed trade, previously regarded as the most implacable opponents of the ban, indicated that they were reconciled to its eventual implementation.
- It transcends transience and therefore reconciles us to the most fundamental condition of our existence.
Synonyms
accept, come to accept, resign oneself to, come to terms with, learn to live with, get used to, make the best of, submit to, accommodate oneself to, adjust oneself to, become accustomed to, acclimatize oneself to;
grin and bear it
informal like it or lump it
2Make (one account) consistent with another, especially by allowing for transactions begun but not yet completed: it is not necessary to reconcile the cost accounts to the financial accounts...
- After a trader completes a deal, the back-office staff confirm the trades by phone and also reconcile cash accounts at the end of each day.
- It is horrible practice to have the teller made responsible for reconciling the accounts, how can one check on one's own work?
- The large differences under these two items came to the fore while reconciling the accounts during the last quarter of the year 2001-02, he adds.
Derivatives
reconcilement
- If the employer and works council fail to agree on a reconcilement of interests, they may call on the Director of the Land Employment Office to mediate.
- The population of highly educated women is increasing but there are many problems with regard to the reconcilement of family and professional life.
reconciler
- The most successful modern reconciler of faith and the imperatives of modern life, King Hussein of Jordan, lamentably died not long ago.
- Levada has a reputation as a subtle reconciler who seeks to bring dissidents into line by patient reasoning rather than punishment.
- For the most part, Prime Ministers have been political reconcilers, representing and responding to the different interests in the party, and being prepared to sacrifice policy goals in the interest of party unity.
reconciliatory
- ‘We are bigger than them,’ he said to roars of approval, echoing the reconciliatory policies of Mandela, South Africa's first black president.
- I've tried all the reconciliatory approaches I can, to no effect.
- We therefore hope that the State House meeting will be a reconciliatory one, to iron out differences.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French reconcilier or Latin reconciliare, from Latin re- 'back' (also expressing intensive force) + conciliare 'bring together'.