propitiate

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English

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Etymology

From Latin propitiāre (“make favourable”), from propitius (“favourable, gracious”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˌpɹəˈpɪʃieɪt/
    • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Verb

propitiate (third-person singular simple present propitiates, present participle propitiating, simple past and past participle propitiated)

  1. (transitive) To conciliate, appease, or make peace with someone, particularly a god or spirit.
    Synonym: appease
    • 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, Book 1, lines 191-192:
      Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage,
      The god propitiate, and the pest assuage.
    • 1849, Herman Melville, chapter 25, in Mardi, Vol. 2:
      But polite and politic it is, to propitiate your hostess.
    • 1910, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, chapter 30, in The Pools of Silence:
      [H]e heard . . . one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned his rifle—the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gun god.
    • 2001 September 30, Thom Shanker, “Who Will Fight This War?”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 April 2015:
      By saying unequivocally that conscription is not an option, the Bush administration and the Rumsfeld Pentagon, while propitiating the ghost of Vietnam, are also profiting from the success of the all-volunteer military.
  2. (transitive) To make propitious or favourable.
    • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter L, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume III, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 19:
      But what was that compared to the pleasure of gazing on him, and listening to his words of pity or of praise! to witnessing the sparkling of his eyes when he gazed on his boy, and sought, by every possible medium, to coax him to his arms, a task not to be achieved in a moment; or in listening to that praise of Lord Allerton, which was likely to propitiate Mary in his favour!
  3. (intransitive) To make propitiation.
    Synonym: atone

Derived terms

Translations

Latin

Verb

propitiāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of propitiō
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