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Propitiatory

adjective
1.
Having power to atone for or offered by way of expiation or propitiation.  Synonyms: expiative, expiatory.
2.
Intended to reconcile or appease.  Synonym: propitiative.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Propitiatory" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Opechancanough, King of Pamaunck!" Savages and procedures of the more civilized with savages have, the world over, a family resemblance. Like many a man before him and after, Smith casts about for a propitiatory wonder. He has with him, so fortunately, "a round ivory double-compass dial." This, with a genial manner, he would present to Opechancanough. The savages gaze, cannot touch through the glass the moving needle, grunt their admiration. Smith proceeds, with gestures and what Indian words he knows, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... dark corner of a fiacre. Beside him sat a man who swore fretfully into his moustache whenever the whimpering of the boy threatened to develop into honest bawls: a strange creature, with pockets full of candy and a way with little boys in public surly and domineering, in private timid and propitiatory. It was raining monotonously, with that melancholy persistence which is the genius of Parisian winters; and the paving of the interminable strange streets was as black glass shot with coloured lights. Some of the streets roared like famished beasts, others again were silent, if with a silence ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... his entring into Judas, and putting him upon betraying Christ to the Chief Priest; but here again he was entirely mistaken, for he did not see, as much a Devil as he was, what the Event would be; but when he came to know, that if Christ was put to Death, he would become a Propitiatory and be the great Sacrifice of Mankind, so to rescue the fallen Race from that Death they had incurr'd the Penalty of, by the Fall, that this was the fulfilling of all Scripture Prophesy, and that thus ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... the manner of procedure the latter party should have every advantage. The questions were the use of English or Latin in the religious services, the authority of particular churches to change their rites and ceremonies, and the propitiatory character of the Mass. The Catholic representatives were to open the discussion each day, but the last word was always reserved for the Reformers. From the very beginning it was clear that the dice had been loaded ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... high principle as this. It arose simply from a sense of the continuity of the Roman commonwealth, from national pride, and from considerations of utility. The catalogue of prodigies, pestilences, divine visitations, expiations and successful propitiatory ceremonies, of which it was chiefly made up, was intended to show the value of the state religion, and to secure the administration of it in patrician hands. It was indeed praiseworthy that considerations so patriotic should at that rude period ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... or Homeward Voyage, by Agias of Troezene, the Atridae differ in opinion; so, while Agamemnon delays his departure to offer propitiatory sacrifices, Menelaus sets sail for Egypt, where he is detained. This poem also contains the narrative of Agamemnon's return, of his assassination, and of the way in which his death was avenged by ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... pious, used to support institutions which can scarcely be called religious. That the spirits of the dead should be permitted to return to earth, under circumstances the most grotesque, to support the doctrines of masses for the dead, purgatory and propitiatory penance; that demons should be exorcised to give testimony to the merits of rival orders of monks and friars; that relics, many of them supposititious, and many of the most disgusting and blasphemous character, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... drawings and effigies of him, all of which are in serpent form. The prayers offered to him at the pool which he is supposed to haunt, and the attempt to please him by drawing his likeness can only be regarded as propitiatory rites and therefore as rudimentary forms of worship. And the idea that thunder is his voice, and that the rain is a gift sent by him in return for the homage paid to him by the people, appears to prove that in course of time, if ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... but there was no time to lament his son's untimely end, for even now the black-prowed ships of Minos might be in pursuit. Onward he flew to safety, and in Sicily built a temple to Apollo, and there hung up his wings as a propitiatory offering to the god who ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... stray puppy hankering for a friendly pat. Ensconced in the chair beside her charge, the patroness swung it coolly aside until little of her was visible but the salient curve of a pastel-tinted cheek and buried her nose in a best-selling novel, ignoring overtures analogous to the wagging of a propitiatory tail. While Savage, in the chair beyond his sister, betrayed every evidence of being heartily grateful for a distance that precluded conversation and to a Providence that tolerated Town Topics. Sally was left to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... to "attack the barbarians such as Yiieh, but always to let the Chinese princes alone." Ts'i, Lu, Ts'in, and Yiieh on different occasions between that date and the fourth century B.C. received similar donations, usually, evidently, more propitiatory than patronizing. In 472 the barbarous King of Yiieh was even nominated Protector along with his present of meat; this was after his total destruction of Wu, when he was marching north to threaten North China. Presents ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... announcement; then with a propitiatory "Ahem! Hum! Harump-h-h-h!" he hitched himself forward in his chair and gazed at Matt over the rims ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... Mrs. Chatterton," broke in one of the other gentlemen, in a propitiatory voice, and leaning over her chair, Mr. Vandeusen turning calmly on his heel to survey the distant lawns through his monocle, "a beggar, don't you know—well, it isn't the pleasantest thing in the world to be called that, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... of the crowd adverted to the character in which I came before them: to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her too logical mind that I must have been caught in some aggressive practices. "Think," she said, "of this little dog fighting, and fighting our Jack." "But," said another in a propitiatory tone, "perhaps he'll not do so any more." I was touched by the kindness of her suggestion, and the sweet, merciful sound of that same "Not do so any more" which really was prompted, I fear, much more by that charity in her which hopeth all things than by any signs ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice, as I shall shew at large in my future work, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis see ante, iii. 174, and for Johnson on the propitiatory sacrifice, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... orange and a biscuit for physical refreshment, I depended on sea and sky for my mental entertainment; and in my hand I bore a slender scroll, destined as a propitiatory offering to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... by an umagad,"[27] is a common saying to express the peculiar effect that the departed may cause on the living. To avert this unkindly feeling and thereby prevent the evil consequences of it, it is not an infrequent thing to see propitiatory offerings made to the departed in the shape of betel nut, chickens, and other things. In one instance the father of a child that had died, presumptively from eating new rice, imposed upon himself an abstinence from that article for a period ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... opinion universally once received in all religions. And still, in these later times wherein our fathers lived, Amurath at the taking of the Isthmus, immolated six hundred young Greeks to his father's soul, in the nature of a propitiatory sacrifice for his sins. And in those new countries discovered in this age of ours, which are pure and virgin yet, in comparison of ours, this practice is in some measure everywhere received: all their idols reek with human blood, not without various examples of horrid cruelty: some they ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... and shut up in a dungeon where she shall never see the light of day.—A rapid stichomuthic dialogue follows as to temporizing and resisting, and then Chrys. is going to do her errand.—Elec. enquires what this is, and learns that Clytaemnestra, disturbed by a dream, is sending propitiatory libations. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton

... you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.' Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... that time it is customary to sound the shophar (cornet) in the synagogues, to give warning to the people that the day of judgment, New Year, is rapidly approaching, and with it the Day of Atonement. Therefore, propitiatory prayers are said twice every day, morning and evening, from the second day of Elul until the eve of the Day of Atonement, which period comprises the last forty days which Moses passed on Sinai, when God was reconciled to Israel and pardoned ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... year. She marches them off en masse in her memoirs. As is the custom in France, the first overture was made to her father, and usually by letter. Her music teacher was her first devotee. He was followed by her dancing master, who, as a propitiatory preparation had a wen cut out of his cheek; then came a wealthy butcher; then a man of rank; then a dissolute physician, from marrying whom she narrowly escaped; then a jeweler, and many others. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... bird, though persecuted as a destroyer of other animals more useful to man, or hunted for food, is regarded with peculiar respect, one might almost say, affection. Some of the North American aboriginal nations celebrate a propitiatory feast to the manes of the intended victim before they commence a bear hunt; and the Norwegian peasantry have not only retained an old proverb which ascribes to the same animal "ti Maends Styrke og tolo Maends Vid," ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... hanging round public-house doors cadging for drinks in a way which his shipmates regarded as a slur upon the entire ship's company. Many a healthy thirst reared on salt beef and tickled with strong tobacco had been spoiled by the sight of Mr. Lister standing by the entrance, with a propitiatory smile, waiting to be invited in to share it, and on one occasion they had even seen him (him, Jem Lister, A.B.) holding a ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs

... desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on behalf of this young lady"—when the fair accused, raising her eyes to her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight but convincing ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... writing always anew upon the conscience of the worshipper the certainty that sin, in its form of guilt, is a tremendous reality in the court of God, that it calls importunately for propitiation, while yet animal propitiations can never, by their very nature, be really propitiatory of themselves. Yet the God of Israel had commanded them; they could not be mere forms therefore. What could they be then but types and suggestions of a reality which should at last justify the symbolism by a victorious fulfilment? Thus was ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule

... his Satanic majesty. The propitiatory libation, however, did not work, for no sooner had his glass touched the mahogany again, than he ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... he commented, "but let that pass. It's probably the last time we'll ever see each other, and we may as well part friends." He was back in his place again with the flask before him, and with a propitiatory motion he extended the liquor toward the other man. "Come, let's forget it," he insinuated. "Have a ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... over stony roads, under a burning sun. Her knees ached from fatigue, and her throat was parched with thirst. But, far from feeling any of the pity which softens the hearts of the profane, Paphnutius rejoiced at these propitiatory sufferings of the flesh which had so sinned. So infuriated was he with holy zeal that he would have liked to cut with rods the body that had preserved its beauty as a shining witness to its infamy. His meditations augmented his pious ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... she was not disappointed. Having brushed the mud from his feet on the porch, Mr. Stamps appeared at the doorway, and, after his usual precautionary glance about him, made his way to the stove. His manner was at once propitiatory and friendly. He drew up a chair and put his wet feet on the stove, where they kept up a comfortable hissing ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... innocent and golden age,—or, so brightly yellow were they, resembling some of the bread which was changed to glistening gold when Midas tried to eat it. The butter must not be forgotten,—butter which Phoebe herself had churned, in her own rural home, and brought it to her cousin as a propitiatory gift,—smelling of clover-blossoms, and diffusing the charm of pastoral scenery through the dark-panelled parlor. All this, with the quaint gorgeousness of the old china cups and saucers, and the crested spoons, and a silver cream-jug (Hepzibah's only other article ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... would require explanations. During the meal she spoke of missing her horseback exercise, and said that she meant to ask Dr. Sommers if he did not know of a good animal that might be hired for a few weeks. Graydon at once resolved to make a propitiatory offering, and to go out with Madge when Miss Wildmere was unattainable. For the time he was content to imitate Madge's tactics, and acted as if he intended to follow the course that she had suggested. The fact that Arnault was so evidently enjoying ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... were on their way to Laramie to trade and sell game, and it was their intention to leave a portion of their mutton with Larry Kildene; for never did they dare venture near him without bringing a propitiatory offering. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... active in the race. This more primitive life emerges to dominate all crowds—where the collective mental level is inevitably lower than that of the best individuals immersed in it—and still conditions many of our beliefs and deeds. There is the propitiatory attitude to unseen Divine powers; which the primitive mind, in defiance of theology, insists on regarding as somehow hostile to us and wanting to be bought off. There is the whole idea and apparatus of sacrifice; even though no more than the big apples and ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (yper) the Greeks, that we may propitiate ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... last reached. The black ram for the propitiatory offering was found, and was now awaiting in Berlin ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... was a stout, cream Confucian with an oleaginous smile, and the gentle, propitiatory man of an inferior people, cunning enough to realise that if you cannot dominate it is wisest to be docile. He had a good stock, a good business, a half-caste wife, and a noiseless, placid, slit-eyed baby about the size of a ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... among the boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see. Then, their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide, and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno. Their eyes, too, are so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those brilliant ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... the jurists drew from the traditional customs of primitive tribes the abstract principles of a legal system that governs the most cultivated societies. This religion was no longer like that of ancient Rome, a mere collection of propitiatory and expiatory rites performed by the citizen for the good of the state; it now pretended to offer to all men a world-conception which gave rise to a rule of conduct and placed the end of existence in the future ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... leading to a chamber[FN382] under the earth, into which he descended with him and, laying his feet in irons, gave him over to the slave girl and went away. Meanwhile, the old men said to one another, "When the day of the Festival of the Fire cometh, we will sacrifice him on the mountain, as a propitiatory offering whereby we shall pleasure the Fire." Presently the damsel went down to him and beat him a grievous beating, till streams of blood flowed from his sides and he fainted; after which she set at his head a scone of bread and a cruse of brackish water and went away and left him. In the middle ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... to the end; and then the sacrifice would find him ready. His mind was familiar with the thought of a sacrifice: it is true that no great plainness invested beforehand the occasion, the object or the victim. All that particularly stood out was that the propitiatory offering would have to be some cherished enjoyment. Very likely indeed this enjoyment would be associated with the charms of another person—a probability pregnant with the idea that such charms would have to be dashed out of sight. At any rate it never ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... an animal are tabooed to females as food, and if they infringe this law Autga is offended and game becomes scarce. When the hunters are unsuccessful it is often assumed that this is the cause, and the augur never fails to point out the transgressing female, who must provide a propitiatory offering. The Malers use poisoned arrows, and when they kill game the flesh round the wound is cut off and thrown away as unfit for food. Cats are under the protection of the game laws, and a person found guilty of killing one ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... sir Spirit, were anything more than the ghost of an olfactor, I would offer it a propitiatory pinch, that you might the more feelingly understand the merit of the said verses, and admire them accordingly. But I am no more to be deemed a snuff-taker because I carry a snuff-box when travelling, and keep ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... yes!" And Mr. Rush-Marvelle smiled a propitiatory smile, intended to soothe the evidently irritated feelings of his better-half, of whom he stood always in awe. "Of course, of course! A very sad mesalliance. Yes, yes! Poor fellow! And is there ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... catholics believe it to be a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice, and therefore call it the sacrament of the altar; whereas, the death of Christ was a full and complete sacrifice, "in which he hath, by one suffering, perfected for ever them that are sanctified. He himself is a priest for ever; who, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... crossed my mind, Sir Elkin," pleaded Farrell with a wagging movement of his whole body, propitiatory, such as dogs make when they see the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... seems to me, that very few of the Chinese are aware of the fact, that this custom still exists among the Taouists. In the rituals of the Taouists the K'ow-ch'i (Ko'w 'to knock against,'ch'i 'teeth') is prescribed as a comminatory and propitiatory act. It is effected by the four upper and lower foreteeth. The Taouists are obliged before the service begins to perform a certain number of 'K'ow-ch'i, turning their heads alternately to the left and to the right, in order to drive away mundane thoughts and aggressions of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... consecravit, et consecrando etiam immutavit'' Responsio, p. 263). Adoration is permitted, and the use of the terms "sacrifice'' and "altar'' maintained as being consonant with scripture and antiquity. Christ is "a sacrifice—so, to be slain; a propitiatory sacrifice—so, to be eaten'' (Sermons, vol. ii. p. 296). "By the same rules that the Passover was, by the same may ours be termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech, neither of them; for to speak after the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... veris accipiantur is the easy canon which he lays down for early and uncertain events. Even when original documents of great value were extant, he refrains from citing them if they do not satisfy his taste. During the second Punic war a hymn to Juno had been written by Livius Andronicus for a propitiatory festival. It was one of the most celebrated documents of early Latin; but he refuses to insert it, on the ground that to the taste of his own day it seemed rude and harsh. Yet as a historian, and not a collector of materials for history, he may plead the privilege of the artist. The ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... entirely to their taste, was also very typical. Punch would retire quietly into obscurity, and having disposed of the objectionable morsel somehow—either by a strenuous swallow or in some corner—would quietly reappear, lay his head on Graeme's knee again, and work it up to his lap with a series of propitiatory little jerks that never failed of their object. Scamp, on the other hand, would hold it in his mouth for a moment till he had savoured it, then place it meekly on the floor, bow his head to the ground, and grovel flat with deprecatory ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... works cannot reconcile God, or merit the remission of sins, grace, and justification: but this we can attain only by faith, when we believe that we are received into favor, for Christ's sake, who alone is appointed our mediator and propitiatory sacrifice, by whom the Father can be reconciled. He, therefore, who expects to merit grace by his works, casts contempt on the merits and grace of Christ, and is seeking the way to God, in his own strength, without the Saviour; ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... PETITION been immolated in the very Temple of Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of slavery. Never before has an outrage so unblushingly profligate been perpetrated upon the Federal Constitution. Yet, while we mourn the degeneracy which this transaction ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... proceeded to consult a well-known sorceress in whom he had implicit confidence for any emergency. With some pretended reluctance the sorceress at length informed him that the victory could be obtained only by the sacrifice of his son. Hakon hesitated not to offer up his only son as a propitiatory sacrifice; after which, returning to his fleet, and his accustomed post in the front ranks of the battle, he renewed the engagement. Towards evening the Jomsburg pirates were overtaken and overwhelmed by a violent storm, destroying or ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... Mars, was a war god, and seems to have been originally an agricultural deity. To him propitiatory offerings were presented, as the guardian of fields and flocks; but as the shepherds who founded the city of Rome were of a warlike disposition, it is easily understood how Mars became the god ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... part of the internal furniture of a church is the altar, a name derived from the Latin altare, a high place. The altar is a raised structure on which propitiatory offerings are placed. In the Christian church the altar is a table or slab on which the instruments of the ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... abyss of torture beneath, such should be the all concentrating anxiety to secure safety that there would be neither time nor taste for any thing else. Every object should seem an altar drenched with sacrificial blood, every sound a knell laden with dolorous omen, every look a propitiatory confession, every breath a pleading prayer. From so single and preternatural a tension of the believer's faculties nothing could allow an instant's cessation except a temporary forgetting or blinking of the awful scene and the immeasurable ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... conflict here is in God himself, so to speak, between his immutable righteousness and his limitless grace. In the sacrifice of Jesus these are reconciled. This doctrine of St Anselm's attaches itself readily to texts of St Paul, for his teachings contain undeniably the vicarious propitiatory element. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... vituperative recollections of old grievances, that we regret some kind friend of the author did not suggest the omission of these personalities. They will be neither advantageous to the writer, interesting to the public, nor propitiatory for the work itself; since the world care less about the squabbles of authors and booksellers than even an "untoward event" in Parliament; and if the writer of every book were to detail his vexations as a preface, the publication of a long series of "Calamities" ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... institutions must gradually open the scheme, ere the final development could be suitably made. After forty centuries of preparation, Christ came; and yet years must pass away, before, in that order of events which God had established, the crowning event of all could occur,—the propitiatory sacrifice be offered up. In extending the kingdom thus founded, the same order, the same adaptation of means to ends, is observable. The word of God, the Sabbath, the sanctuary, the workings of the Holy Spirit, and the co-operation ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark

... upon hotels, Edwin was conscious of new strength and cheerfulness. He left the crowded and rose-lit dining-room early, because he was not at ease amid its ceremoniousness of attire and of service, and went into the turkey-carpeted hall, whose porter suddenly sprang into propitiatory life on seeing him. He produced a cigarette, and with passionate haste the porter produced a match, and by his method of holding the flame to the cigarette, deferential and yet firm, proved that his young existence had not been wasted in idleness. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... found himself in an awkward fix. Credit was dead, none of his relatives would notice or assist him; his whole fortune consisted of a dozen gold Wilhelms. At this critical moment an eccentric maiden aunt, to whom, a year or two previously, he had sent a propitiatory offering of a ring-tailed monkey and a leash of pea-green parrots, and who had never condescended even to acknowledge the present, departed this life, bequeathing him ten thousand florins as a return ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... the two chiefs Tubourai Tamaide and Tootahah returned, bringing in their canoes not branches only, but two young trees, and would not venture on board till these had been received as emblems of peace. They each also brought, as propitiatory gifts, a hog and bread-fruit ready dressed—both very acceptable articles at that time. In return, a hatchet and a nail were given to each ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... Loschek knew very well where she stood. The Committee was propitiatory. She was not in danger, save as it might develop. They were, in a measure, putting ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 'This name,' he says, 'records a circumstance which took place in the nineteenth century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain, burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.' Particulars, I may say, of time, place, and person could be easily added to Mr. Moore's statement, excepting, perhaps as to the deity in question; on that point ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... at once from that divine work which is the law of His life, and from His own love and pity. The means for accomplishing this necessary work are implied in the context, as in other parallel Scriptural sayings, to be His propitiatory death. The instrumentality employed is not only His own personal agency on earth, nor only His throned rule on the right hand of God with power over the Spirit of holiness, but also the work of His Church, and His work through them. Of that He is mainly speaking when He says, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... the Romans hath this worthy sentence: I accompt the afflictions of this world transitory, Be they never so many, in full equivalence Cannot countervail those heavenly glory, Which we shall have through Christ his propitiatory. I also accompt the rebukes of our Saviour Greater gains to me than ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... perilous, indeed, is the descent itself, that the islanders venture not the feat, without invoking supernatural aid. Flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks, stand the guardian deities of Mondo; and on altars before them, are placed the propitiatory offerings of the traveler. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... practical handbook, intended for the Jews who, after the downfall of Jerusalem and the Dispersion, found that most of the Law had to be adjusted to new circumstances, in which the institution of sacrifices and propitiatory offerings had been practically abolished. The Talmud contains the decisions of Jewish doctors of many generations on almost every single question which might puzzle the conscience of a punctilious Jew in keeping the Law under the altered conditions of the ...
— Hebrew Literature

... imbecillity of the child, which ought rather to have made him more cautious to prevent any accident of mischief? The true ground of this rule seems rather to be, that the child, by reason of it's want of discretion, is presumed incapable of actual sin, and therefore needed no deodand to purchase propitiatory masses: but every adult, who dies in actual sin, stood in need of such atonement, according to the humane superstition of the founders of the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... one of the four great Moslem rites, is simply the annual propitiatory offering made by every Mahometan head of a family, and by the Sultan as such. It is based not on a Koranic injunction, but on the "Souna" or record of the Prophet's "custom" or usages, which forms an authoritative precedent in Moslem ritual. So far ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... cold, and we saw the smoke coming up from the lake, so we went down there to get warm. And," he continued, in a propitiatory tone, "we thought we'd catch some ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... defeated their design. They then sent to consult the oracle of Apollo, to learn what was the cause of the displeasure and hostility thus manifested against them by the god of the sea. The oracle replied, that they could not depart from Troy, till they had first made an atoning and propitiatory offering by the sacrifice of a man, such an one as Apollo himself might designate. When this answer was returned, the whole army, as Sinon said, was thrown into a state of consternation. No one knew but that the fatal designation might fall on him. ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... car was open. Its forward end was curtained off into a small reception-room. Here the admiring and propitiatory reporters were wont to sit and transpose the music of Senorita Alvarita's talk into the more florid key of the press. A picture of Abraham Lincoln hung against a wall; one of a cluster of school-girls grouped upon stone steps was in another place; a third was Easter lilies in a blood-red frame. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... as they are only too willing to do, you can easily put a stop to that by a few caustic remarks that you don't want savages in your house; and a pointed use of that delightful story in one of the White Cross papers,[25] of the Zulu chief to whom the Government sent a propitiatory present of wagons and wheelbarrows, thinking that it would be sure to please him. But he gazed on them with fine scorn, exclaiming: "What's the use of those things for carrying our burdens when we have plenty ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... or sacrifice of the altar, is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory, sacrifice for the living and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward



Words linked to "Propitiatory" :   propitiate, expiative, propitiative, conciliatory, conciliative



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