rapprochement
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹəˈpɹɒʃmɒ̃/
ipa: /ɹæ-/
ipa: /ɹæpɹoʊʃˈmɑn/
ipa: /-ˈmɑ̃/
Forms: form: rapprochements
form: rapproachment
Etymology: Unadapted borrowing from French rapprochement (“act or process of getting closer together; link (between two things)”).
Senses: examples: text: It was the Nixon administration that saw the rapprochement between the United States and China.
text: The inauguration of a liberal order of things, a rapprochement of the [First French] Empire with constitutionalism and Parliamentary government, had been expected from the Speech from the Throne now just given. This expectation is completely disappointed by the speech. …
ref: 1869 December 11, “The Changes in the Government of France (Die Neue Freie Presse—Vienna, Nov. 30.)”, in Public Opinion […] , volume XVI, number 429, London: Printed by Charles Wyman, […] , →OCLC, page 738, column 2:
text: Not forever, however, was the animal world to suffer this indignity at the hands of man. Thinkers themselves prepared the way for a rapprochement between the two. More particularly the English philosophers from [John] Locke onward, together with their French followers, […] may be said by a sort of leveling-down process to have favored the idea of a mental kinship between man and brute.
ref: 1892 February, James Sulley, “Is Man the Only Reasoner?”, in The Popular Science Monthly, volume XL, New York, N.Y.: Popular Science Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 506:
text: M. [Aristide] Briand, in a statement on the French foreign policy said a lasting European peace was impossible without a Franco-German rapprochement.
ref: 1926 December 2, “‘No victors’ if European war starts: French foreign policy: China and Italy”, in The Daily Examiner, volume 18, number 2721 (New Series), Grafton, N.S.W.: Printed and published by William Frederick Blood, of Grafton, for the Daily Examiner, Limited, …, →OCLC, page 5:
text: Attempts at a Hungarian–Yugoslavian rapprochement are not a recent matter, and Italy has always approved of them. But in the past these attempts had been made with the idea of breaking up the Little Entente and isolating Yugoslavia.
ref: 1940 January, “Italy’s Living Room”, in The Living Age, volume 357, number 4480, New York, N.Y.: The Living Age Company Inc., →OCLC, section II (Eyes to the Balkans: Translated from Europe Nouvelle, Paris Political and Literary Weekly), page 475, column 1:
text: Further, I argue that [Robin George] Collingwood's final work is in fact the culmination of his persistent endeavour to bring about rapprochements between philosophy and history, and between theory and practice.
ref: 1989, David Boucher, “The New Leviathan in Context”, in The Social and Political Thought of R. G. Collingwood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 27:
text: “These norms were laid in the early 2000s, when Seoul’s so-called sunshine policy took off,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at Tufts University, told The Washington Post last week, referring to a rapprochement policy adopted by South Korea.
ref: 2018 June 4, Dominique Mosbergen, “Another Summit Snafu: Who’s Going to Pay for Kim Jong Un’s Singapore Hotel Room? […] ”, in HuffPost:
text: The fighting[…] threatens to upend recent efforts to de-escalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, have made steps toward rapprochement in recent days after years of turmoil.
ref: 2023 March 24, Eric Schmitt, “Conflict in Syria Escalates Following Attack That Killed a U.S. Contractor”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: Critics, including many veterans of the diplomatic corps, have been alarmed by Mr. Trump’s apparent rapprochement with Russia.
ref: 2025 February 19, Ken Bensinger, Michael M. Grynbaum, “Right-Wing Media Praises U.S.-Russia Talks as ‘Breath of Fresh Air’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: The reestablishment of cordial relations, particularly between two countries; a reconciliation.