Appease calms someone by giving in. Soothe calms someone by comforting them.
Both words end with someone calmer, so children use them as if they were the same. The difference is how you get there.
Appease works by handing over what someone wants. If a little brother is shouting for the last biscuit and you give it to him to stop the noise, you have appeased him. It works for now, but he may well demand the next biscuit too. That is why appease often sounds like giving in.
Soothe works by comfort. A parent soothes a crying baby with a gentle song, and a cool flannel soothes a sunburnt arm. Nobody has been given what they demanded: the upset or the pain has simply been made gentler.
To calm someone down by giving them what they want.
Similar: calm, soothe, please
To make someone feel calmer or to make pain gentler.
Similar: calm, comfort, ease
Comprehension questions often ask what a character's actions show about them. A character who appeases others may be weak or anxious to avoid trouble, while one who soothes is kind and caring. The verb is the evidence.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test