[f. STILL v.1 + -ING1.] The action of making still; quietening; calming.

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1530.  Palsgr., 276/1. Styllyng or apeysing, apeisement.

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1622.  Hakewill, David’s Vow, vii. 258. A deceit … which Nurses vse for the stilling of their Children.

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c. 1698.  Locke, Cond. Understand., § xlv. Thus some trivial sentence, or a scrap of poetry, will sometimes get into men’s heads, and make such a chiming there, that there is no stilling of it.

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1792.  Mme. D’Arblay, Lett., 20 Dec. The pretended friends of the people … wait but the stilling of the present ferment of royalty to come forth.

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1846.  Trench, Mirac., xix. 310. They … might pluck the ripe ears for the stilling of their present hunger.

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1863.  Miss Whately, Ragged Life in Egypt, 200. It is beautiful when the sun draws in his fiery shafts to watch the stilling of the air.

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