peacemaker
/ˈpiːsmeɪkə(ɹ)/
peacemaker means A person who restores peace, especially by settling disputes; one who engages in peacemaking.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, peacemaker ranks #2,340 of 14,361 for Most Ingenious Words, #7,102 of 14,448 for Funniest Words, #7,156 of 14,410 for Most Ponderous Words, #7,180 of 14,444 for Most Exacting Words.
peacemaker is pronounced /ˈpiːsmeɪkə(ɹ)/.
Why “peacemaker” is a great word
A person who actively works to restore peace, especially by mediating and settling disputes. From the English words peace ('freedom from disturbance') and maker ('one who makes'), first attested in 1526 in the Tyndale Bible as a translation of Koine Greek εἰρηνοποιοί (eirēnopoioí, 'peacemaker'). Unlike a 'peacekeeper' (who maintains an existing calm, often through authority or force) or a 'mediator' (a neutral party focused narrowly on negotiation), a peacemaker is an architect of harmony, reaching across ruptured relations to build bridges from the raw timber of conflict. It is the quiet figure stepping between two raised voices in a dusty street, the patient listener who hears the grievance beneath the insult, the hand that sows a future where before there was only the barren ground of strife—the labor of stitching what was torn, not just halting the knife.
Etymology
Compound of peace + maker.
First attested in the Tyndale Bible from 1526, as a translation of Koine Greek εἰρηνοποιοί (eirēnopoioí, “peacemaker”), a hapax legomenon found in the New Testament. (The Wycliffe Bible from 1395 instead uses "pesible men", to translate Latin pacifici from the Vulgate)
noun
- A person who restores peace, especially by settling disputes; one who engages in peacemaking.e.g.“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shalbe called the chyldren of God.”
- Catachresis for pacemaker.e.g.“Indeed, although the activity of the heart depends on the intrinsic rhythm of its peacemaker […]”
- An early type of American revolver, especially the Colt 1873 Single Action Army model.e.g.“Peacemaker on his hip”
- The B-36 bomber.
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