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Gene93 Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary

to quell/calm fears, anger, etc

Hello,
Do the sentences below sound natural to you:
- There was very little I could do to quell/calm my friend's anger.
- It was coming up to 11 PM and I was still trying to quell/calm Jenny's fears.

I saw "quell" used in collocation with lust the other day. Is that natural? "Don't do anything stupid, okay? Quell the lust" I don't think I'd say that.
  

Top answer

I would use ‘calm’ when reducing a person’s anger. However, with a person’s fears (a more permanent emotion) ‘quell’ is my preference. I doubt there’s a way to ‘quell’ a person’s ****, since it not an obvious emotion but is based on animal pleasures and would need long-term treatment.

— Wilpeter

  • I would use ‘calm’ when reducing a person’s anger.
  • However, with a person’s fears (a more permanent emotion) ‘quell’ is my preference.
  • I doubt there’s a way to ‘quell’ a person’s ****, since it not an obvious emotion but is based on animal pleasures and would need long-term treatment.
  • ‘Distract’ is sometimes heard as the approach to averting it.
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1 Answers
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I would use ‘calm’ when reducing a person’s anger.
However, with a person’s fears (a more permanent emotion) ‘quell’ is my preference.
I doubt there’s a way to ‘quell’ a person’s ****, since it not an obvious emotion but is based on animal pleasures and would need long-term treatment. ‘Distract’ is sometimes heard as the approach to averting it.
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