irenic

Definition

Promoting or fitted to promote peace or peacemaking, especially over disputes; conciliatory, non-confrontational, peaceful.

Etymology

From Ancient Greek εἰρηνικός (eirēnikós, “characterized by peace, peaceful”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). Εἰρηνικός (Eirēnikós) is derived from εἰρήνη (eirḗnē, “peace”) (possibly from εἴρω (eírō, “to fasten together”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“(verb) to bind, tie together; (noun) thread”)), or εἴρω (eírō, “to say, speak”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- (“to say, speak”))) + -ῐκός (-ĭkós, suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’).

Example Sentences

• "Plato and the Athenians must have felt almost as uncomfortable with Xenophon's irenic intervention as one feels at times in an argument when—just as the point in dispute, precisely by being brought to a head, begins to be interesting—a helpful third party kindly takes it upon himself to reconcile the disputants, to take the whole matter back to a triviality"
• "The idea that the Jews of the region are not genetically distinct from other peoples of the area should be an irenic insight."
• "The philosophes contrasted their own irenic calls for tolerance with the church's historical record as the perennial source of cruelty and fanaticism."