One way to hold pacify: a surface that was churning gets pressed flat. Something was rising — crying, shouting, fighting — and a hand comes down on it until it is level again. The word is built from 'peace' plus 'make', so it always reports that the movement stopped. It never tells you how heavy the hand was, and that gap is where most of its meaning lives.
From the word’s history
From Middle French pacifier, from Latin pāx ('peace') plus faciō ('to do, make') — literally 'to make peace'. The 'make' part is why the word keeps pointing at a result rather than a method.
來自中古法文 pacifier，上溯拉丁文 pāx（和平）加 faciō（做、使），字面就是「做出和平」。重點在那個「做」：它交代的是做出了什麼結果，而不是用什麼手段做出來的，這正好解釋了為什麼 pacify 從哄嬰兒到鎮壓一個地區都能用。
Wiktionary entry for pacify, etymology_text supplied in this packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:709213676:15413)
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