What's the difference between quell and subdue?

Quell


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To die.
  • (v. i.) To be subdued or abated; to yield; to abate.
  • (v. t.) To take the life of; to kill.
  • (v. t.) To overpower; to subdue; to put down.
  • (v. t.) To quiet; to allay; to pacify; to cause to yield or cease; as, to quell grief; to quell the tumult of the soul.
  • (n.) Murder.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Vladimir Putin brushed off complaints of election fixing during his annual televised live chat with the nation on Thursday , but behind the scenes his lieutenants are anxiously plotting how to quell rising discontent.
  • (2) Dozens were injured, including 20 policemen, in a protest triggered by food costs that was eventually quelled by baton charges and teargas.
  • (3) Consider the open joke that was the repeated European bank stress tests ; the foot-dragging of the central bankers to quell financial panic; the IMF report last week showing that even if Greece took the troika’s medicine it would still be lumbered with “unsustainable” debt .
  • (4) This, in turn, would provide the cover to push through aspects of the Trump agenda that require a further suspension of core democratic norms – such as his pledge to deny entry to all Muslims (not only those from selected countries), his Twitter threat to bring in “the feds” to quell street violence in Chicago, or his obvious desire to place restrictions on the press.
  • (5) However, Ralf Speth, chief executive of JLR, moved to quell these fears by claiming the company would remain focused on the UK, where it was rumoured to be considering a deal to buy the Silverstone racing circuit.
  • (6) Al-Ahram Online said police fired tear gas to quell the violence and several cars in the area were destroyed or set on fire.
  • (7) The government has attempted to quell blackout fears this winter after a fire shut down half the capacity at a power station in Oxfordshire.
  • (8) You can't blame Silvio Berlusconi and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, for trying to quell the sense of panic in bond markets.
  • (9) For even a superior military force requires a clearly defined strategy if it is to quell rather than fuel violence.
  • (10) This is usually quarter-finals day but the rain means we've also got a couple of fourth-round matches to get through - Maria Sharapova, the favourite after Serena Williams' exit, and Angelique Kerber face off on Centre Court first up, while last year's finalist, Sabine Lisicki, who quelled Ana Ivanovic's resistance yesterday, meets the dangerous Yaroslava Shvedova - the Kazakh who once played a golden set in these parts.
  • (11) "We still meet the highest security standards", said the company's co-founder, Hans-Christoph Quelle.
  • (12) But Abbott has made it clear he will not stand aside, and is seeking to allay his colleague’s concerns and quell the dissent, including about the powerful role played by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin .
  • (13) Door-to-door immunizations and a community canvass for susceptibles were marshalled to quell a rubeola outbreak in Norfolk, one of 25 outbreaks reported in Virginia from January through August 1977.
  • (14) Egypt has been struggling to quell a jihadist insurgency since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, focused mainly on their primary holdout in the Sinai Peninsula in the east.
  • (15) For one so self-conscious in his career choices, he's remarkably unself-regarding to talk to; almost as rackety and frank as Freddie Quell, his character in Paul Thomas Anderson's film – our movie of the year, of which his performance is the centrepiece.
  • (16) The attorney general, George Brandis, has already had to quell one burst of internal dissent when he unveiled the first tranche of national security changes during the last parliamentary sitting fortnight.
  • (17) Officials also recently held talks with the Russian military over a new treaty intended to help quell the rise of cyber attacks.
  • (18) Only hours after US and Swiss officials raided the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich – amid the news that several senior Fifa officials faced extradition to the US on federal corruption charges – De Gregorio attempted to quell the growing storm at a press conference by describing the incident as good for Fifa.
  • (19) And if they don’t and won’t, we need to start redistributing shame, making people feel ashamed, so when they repeat what the FN is saying, we reply, ‘ Quelle honte !’ [Shame on you].
  • (20) The city is haunted by memories of the regime's tactics: In 1982, Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement there, sealing off Hama in an assault that killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people.

Subdue


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To bring under; to conquer by force or the exertion of superior power, and bring into permanent subjection; to reduce under dominion; to vanquish.
  • (v. t.) To overpower so as to disable from further resistance; to crush.
  • (v. t.) To destroy the force of; to overcome; as, medicines subdue a fever.
  • (v. t.) To render submissive; to bring under command; to reduce to mildness or obedience; to tame; as, to subdue a stubborn child; to subdue the temper or passions.
  • (v. t.) To overcome, as by persuasion or other mild means; as, to subdue opposition by argument or entreaties.
  • (v. t.) To reduce to tenderness; to melt; to soften; as, to subdue ferocity by tears.
  • (v. t.) To make mellow; to break, as land; also, to destroy, as weeds.
  • (v. t.) To reduce the intensity or degree of; to tone down; to soften; as, to subdue the brilliancy of colors.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) So I am, of course, intrigued about the city’s newest tourist attraction: a hangover bar, open at weekends, in which sufferers can come in and have a bit of a lie down in soothingly subdued lighting, while sipping vitamin-enriched smoothies.
  • (2) Hopes that the Queen's diamond jubilee and the £9bn spent on the Olympics would lift sales over the longer term have largely been dashed as growth slows and the outlook, though robust with a growing order book, remains subdued.
  • (3) The director general of the CML, Paul Smee, said: "January is always a subdued month in the mortgage market but the underlying trend and strong year-on-year growth across all borrower groups indicates a strong start to 2014 continuing the sort of lending levels seen throughout 2013.
  • (4) England had started with some well-executed set piece moves, a triangular formation in midfield initially foxing Australia, but it was the Wallabies’ ability to react in open play that marked them out: Foley’s first try, after Israel Folau, otherwise subdued on the night, ran through Robshaw, came after he noticed Ben Youngs had drifted too wide and cut inside the scrum-half and Joe Launchbury before wrongfooting Brown.
  • (5) An investigation by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem concluded that while she did have a knife under her niqab veil she posed no threat to soldiers at the time she was shot and could have been subdued without being fatally wounded.
  • (6) In these cases, the woman’s wardrobe must feature subdued tones.
  • (7) Releasing its quarterly inflation report, the Bank's monetary policy committee admitted that the UK recession was deeper than previously thought and that inflation would stay very subdued for a long time – a signal that interest rates will not rise in the short term.
  • (8) He does not have the ingenuity of Diego Maradona or the lawless wit of Luis Suárez, so does not cast spells over opponents, but he has shown that he can certainly help subdue them and uplift his team.
  • (9) The company blamed the decline in performance on a challenging trading and competitive environment, ongoing subdued consumer sentiment and economic uncertainty, the effect of strong market capacity growth and an unrecovered $27m cost of the carbon tax.
  • (10) And we are hopeful that a recovery in productivity will keep firms' cost pressures subdued," its economists said in a research note.
  • (11) "However, one area of the market which is subdued is remortgaging – all the more surprising when you consider the excellent rates available and the threat of an interest rate rise.
  • (12) Examples included officers punching and using pepper spray on people who have already been subdued, including after they have been handcuffed and at times “as punishment for the person’s earlier verbal or physical resistance”.
  • (13) In the Alevi association, in this subdued but defiant campaign, Demirtaş looked past the cameras, his gaze static and distant, and seemed not to be there.
  • (14) Believing the suspect’s magazine was empty, he chased the gunman in hopes of subduing him.
  • (15) No, Mourinho always wants to win but the priority was certainly to hold the fort – and there is no better team in England when it comes to subduing high-calibre opponents.
  • (16) Forming a coalition will be challenging, while operational considerations must not be subordinate to political ones, Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told the Guardian: "A coalition in which sectarian Iraqi Shia militias play a key role because these are Baghdad's only or most reliable troops, or in which Kurdish fighters are asked to operate far from their territories, could antagonise the very constituency whose support against Isis is fundamental: the various local Sunni communities who have accommodated or been subdued by Isis."
  • (17) The crowd was initially subdued, having just seen Murray crash out and there were plenty of empty seats when the match began.
  • (18) It had begun as a subdued explosion, really, in the early 1960s, when a new generation of bohemians began to adapt and mutate the culture of the 'Beats' - Jack Kerouac et al - which had installed itself on North Beach during the late 1950s.
  • (19) A subdued Rosberg was in his shoulder-shrugging mood.
  • (20) The results indicate that the extent of DNA degradation to acid-soluble nucleotides is highest in chromatin at the early stages of gonad growth, being drastically subdued in the mature sperm cell.