tr.v. quelled, quelling, quells

1. To put down forcibly; suppress: Police quelled the riot.
2. To pacify; quiet: finally quelled the children’s fears.

[Middle English quellen, to kill, from Old English cwellan; see gwel(upside-down "e") in Indo-European roots.]

I don’t know if this word was suggested pre-etherizing, I think it might have been so my apologies to the person who posted it, but - hey! it’s here now.  I was interested in its root coming from a word meaning "kill."

any relation to: squelch?

(click to hear the word) (skwlch)
v. squelched, squelch·ing, squelch·es
v. tr.
To crush by or as if by trampling; squash.
To put down or silence, as with a crushing retort: squelch a rumor.
To suppress or inhibit: a protein that squelches gene transcription.
v. intr.
To produce a splashing, squishing, or sucking sound, as when walking through ooze.
n.
A squishing sound.
A crushing reply.
An electric circuit that cuts off a radio receiver when the signal is too weak for reception of anything but noise.
[ Probably imitative.]
squelcher n.  [/quote?]
J.

[quote author=jmonro12 link=board=wordsuggest;num=1043436641;start=0#1 date=01/26/03 at 16:49:04]any relation to: squelch?

The OED doesn’t seem to point to a commonality in etymology.  Squelch was first used in 1620 to mean "a heavy crushing fall or blow acting on a soft body; the sound produced by this;" in 1624 to mean "to fall, drop, or stamp upon (something soft) with crushing or squashing force; to crush in this way."  

It’s related to the word quelch, first used in 1659: "...quash, quat to squash, squat - To squelch."

A look at the word "quash" (which seems closer to quell than squelch) goes back to Latin quatere to shake; "quat" is of obscure origin.

I can’t recall—was there a discussion about its relationship, if any, to quiet or acquiesce?

I don’t remember.  Did you post this word originally?

The roots for both quiet and acquiesce come from an Indo-European word I can’t type with my keypad - it’s k-little w-e-i-upside-down e.