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Propitiatory   Listen
noun
Propitiatory  n.  (Jewish Antiq.) The mercy seat; so called because a symbol of the propitiated Jehovah.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Propitiatory" Quotes from Famous Books



... Miss Mees were exactly alike, being meagre, dilapidated, white-haired old ladies, with the same beaked noses and receding chins; both wore rusty black frocks, each of which was decorated with a white cameo brooch; both walked with the same propitiatory shuffle. They were like a couple of elderly, moulting, decorous hens who, in spite of their physical disabilities, had something of a presence. This was obtained from the authority they had wielded over the many pupils who had passed through ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... 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 improve her mind with a copy of Vanity Fair, from ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Henry. First, it was true; and secondly, he was anxious to be propitiatory, for he ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... the custody of the evil one. Van Haubitz 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 for the addition to her menagerie. A ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... animal was cut open, his entrails taken out and thrown to the four corners of the earth, and his body suspended by the neck from the top of a long pole set perpendicularly in the ground. The Evil Spirit's wrath, however, seemed implacable, for it stormed worse after the performance of these propitiatory rites than it did before. This did not weaken at all the faith of the Kamchadals in the efficacy of their atonement. If the storm did not abate, it was only because an unbelieving American with a diabolical brass box called a "come-pass'" had insisted upon crossing the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... without the marriage the thing could not be done at all. Mina had reported Mr Disney faithfully, and Lady Evenswood's knowledge of her cousin Robert was not at fault. "Apart from anything else, there would be the sordid question," she ended, with a smile that became propitiatory against her will; she had meant it ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... a fairly recent though prehistoric lava flow. It occurs to me that possibly this flow destroyed some of the clay beds from which the ancient potters got their precious material. The temple may have been erected as a propitiatory offering to the god of volcanoes in the hope that the anger which had caused him to send the lava flow might be appeased. It may be that the Inca Viracocha, an unusually gifted ruler, was particularly interested in ceramics ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... in Celtic as well as other folklore, how deeply they had entered into the inner tissue of the agricultural mind, so as to be linked to its keenest emotions. Here the rites of religion, whether persuasive as in prayer, or compulsory as in sympathetic magic, whether associated with communal or propitiatory sacrifice, whether directed to the earth or to the heaven, all had an intensely practical and terribly real character, due to man's constant preoccupation with the growth and storage of food for man and beast. In the hunting, the pastoral, and above all in the agricultural life, religion ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl

... to-night!' cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. 'Short and snappish we are! But we're out of sorts for want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs, haven't us, deary? But this is the place to cure 'em in; this is the place where the all- overs is ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... leaned his elbows on the bar and spoke in a propitiatory tone, "I'sh sorry you went off in such a huff. Right good fello', I understand. If you'd asked me, I'd saved you lot of trouble and money on that lease." Reedy stopped to hiccough. "Even now, take your lease off your hands at half ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... celerity of action, saw with his usual sagacity that if he openly avowed his revolt from the emperor, he should be safer; and feeling uncertain of the fidelity of the soldiers, having offered secret propitiatory sacrifices to Bellona, he summoned the army by sound of trumpet to an assembly, and standing on a tribune built of stone, with every appearance of confidence in his manner, he spoke thus ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... when it has separated the apostolic teaching from all subsequent additions, compares this doctrine with the age in which it was expressed, in order to separate what it conceives to be the permanent from the temporary; and hence comes to view the atonement, apart from all the hallowed associations of propitiatory sacrifice which in the minds of the early converts were inseparably united with it. These ideas, which the doctrine of the church regards as integral portions of revealed verity, it considers to be the peculiarity of the age in which the revelation was communicated. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... cloud—that hostile beings might inhabit what appeared but thin air—they prepared to oppose violence with violence, and to meet battle with manful battle. Some went and cut new lance poles, others tough and elastic bows. The priests prepared sacrifices to appease the spirit, if spirit it were, and sang propitiatory songs, in which they first called it a good Spirit, and thanked it as such for the fat deer and mooses it had sent to their hunting-grounds, and the juicy fish which filled their waters, and the tender fowls which ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... idolatry of Hinduism, or, to confine our comparisons to the Latin world, as 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 life. It was more unlike the worship that Augustus ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... our host and marched down to the Piazza. The news had spread by now, and in the dimly breaking morning light we saw the Square full of people—men, women, and children. As we marched in there was a cheer, not very hearty—a cheer propitiatory, for they did not know what we meant to do. The colonel made them a brief speech, promising peace, security, liberty, plenty, and all the goods of heaven. In a few stern words he cautioned them against "treachery," and announced that any ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... 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 ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... if he should happen to be so foolish, pray think of ME; of all we owe him, and how much I love him, and ought to love him." She then bestowed a propitiatory kiss, and ran off to dress for dinner; it was a much longer ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... the Hyrcanians but most of the people dwelling on or near the Caspian sea, preserved this race or a similarly formidable one, more particularly to devour their dead; it being considered more propitiatory to the Gods, and more flattering to the spirits of the deceased, to make this disposition of the corpse, than consigning it to the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... grains of salt to be taken with the text; and as some words of apology, addition, correction, or amplification fall to be said on almost every study in the volume, it will be most simple to run them over in their order. But this must not be taken as a propitiatory offering to the gods of shipwreck; I trust my cargo unreservedly to the chances of the sea; and do not, by criticising myself, seek to disarm the wrath of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... going with 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 ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Cazeau blandly, turning with a smile and propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet seems a little—what shall we say?—unduly excited? Yet surely the recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her a faithful and devout servant—" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted Madame Patoux, "Believe me, Martine ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... people who did not love her children did not love her; and that, if Hippy went, she went. We thought it a masterpiece of firmness to rejoin that Hippolyto must go in any event, but I am bound to own that he did not go, and that his mother stayed, and so fed us with every cunning, propitiatory dainty, that we must have been Pagans to renew our threat. In fact, we begged Mrs. Johnson to go into the country with us, and she, after long reluctation on Hippy's account, consented, agreeing to send him away ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... which was just then in preparation as instances in point. Dare we indeed string them together, and add the case of the deserted ruin, as though the dead continually besieged the paepaes of the living; were kept at arm's-length, even from the first foundation, only by propitiatory feasts, and, so soon as the fire of life went out upon the hearth, swarmed back into possession ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Froment Jeune. Such brides always had the wandering gaze of those in search of fresh horizons, or of those looking already for the chance of escape. For such "unhappies," ces malheureuses, Madame's manner had an added softness and tenderness; she passed the frosted bridal cake as if it were a propitiatory offering to the God of Hymen. However melancholy the bride, the cake and Madame's caressing smiles wrought ever the same spell; for an instant, at least, the newly-made wife was in love with matrimony and with the cake, accepting the latter with the pleased surprise of one who realizes that, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... 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," ten men's strength and twelve men's cunning, but they still pay to him ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... 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 of women!" Or you can use that equally good story, told by Sir John ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... 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

... to conciliate him. I brought him propitiatory buns, which was weak and ineffectual, as he ate them with avidity, and hated me as bitterly as ever; for he had conceived from the first a profound contempt for me, and a distrust which no blandishments of mine could remove. Looking back now, I am inclined ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... 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 ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great harm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a dog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling toward him on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true worship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning he was essentially a materialist—he became a spiritualist later on. Man's first religion must have been, necessarily, a material one; he worshiped (propitiated) only that which he could see, or feel, or hear, or touch; his undeveloped psychical being ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

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

... 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 Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... very disagreeable certainty of approaching evil began to take possession of all those who stood around, many crying aloud that every omen of good was wanting, and declaring that unless something of a markedly propitiatory nature was quickly accomplished, the agriculture of the entire Empire would cease to flourish, and the various departments of the commerce in silk would undoubtedly be thrown into a state of most inextricable confusion. Indeed, in spite of all things designed to have a contrary effect, the ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... it, was 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 ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... surrendered himself into her custody, and was ushered by her into a little room, where he was bidden to make himself as civilized as possible in appearance, lest his war-worn guise should shock mamma and frighten baby into convulsions, he obeyed in silence, nay, even with propitiatory smiles and gestures. Ay, lay down your arms and bend the suppliant knee, sheathe your useless sword, and hush to soothing whisper the voice that thundered in command a week agone; hide away with noiseless hand the heavy boot and clinking spur; ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... marched out of the room with her extraordinary carriage finely manifest, Rosy's little laugh was propitiatory. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of my plan, nor, indeed, would Robert listen to him if he did. But he would listen to you, I feel sure. That is my reason for coming to you." She rose from her seat, and sought to shepherd him into compliance by approaching him with a propitiatory smile. "Do come, doctor. I have trespassed too much on your kindness already, but ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... 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 one at hand for occasional use, than I am to be reckoned a casuist or ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... meantime had been led in the way I have mentioned to take up this little tract, and while reading it was struck with the sentence, "The finished work of CHRIST." The thought passed through my mind, "Why does the author use this expression? why not say the atoning or propitiatory work of CHRIST?" Immediately the words "It is finished" suggested themselves to my mind. What was finished? And I at once replied, "A full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin: the debt was paid by the Substitute; CHRIST died for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... turn out for the best even now. The foundation's not so bad!" Jeppe doddered to and fro, his hands behind his back. The rest of the day he was inclined to solemnity, and did his best to obliterate all remembrance of the punishment. "It was only for your own good!" he would say, in a propitiatory tone. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... of them; and we always understood that this voluntary punishment, like the cutting off the joints of the finger at the Friendly Islands, was not inflicted on themselves from the violence of grief on the death of their friends, but was designed as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert any danger or mischief to which they might ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... feeling where there was half-a-crown to sweeten the neglect, what was it where such a propitiatory offering was out of the question, and where the original connection had been closer, among the old servants, the dependants and tenants? His lofty acknowledgment of their bows,—his short, reluctant "Good morning," when forced to speak,—and ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... 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 ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... he had left it. He smiled sadly as he noted his civilian clothes laid out on the bed. However, he would not wear them to-night. A little later, while he was hanging them in the clothes-press, a propitiatory cough sounded at the door. Turning, he beheld the strangest sight ever seen on the Rancho Palomar—a butler, bearing a tray covered ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... 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 our ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... given you her message. It is for you, Lycinus, to overhaul your work, and by removing these blemishes avoid the offence. They shocked and made her nervous as I read; she kept on addressing the Goddesses in propitiatory words; and such feelings may surely be permitted to her sex. For that matter, to be quite frank, I shared them to some extent. At the first hearing I found no offence; but as soon as she put her finger on the fault, I began to agree. You know what happens with visible ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... them themselves to deliver. Then with an ill-concealed relief some would come to the footlights, some leap up in their places with a tenoring eagerness, some would be facetious and some speak with neuralgic effort, some were impertinent, some propitiatory, some dull, but all were—disappointing, disappointing. God was not in any of them. A platform is no setting for the shy processes of an honest human mind,—we are all strained to artificiality in the excessive glare of attention that beats upon us there. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... strange work must be looked upon as a 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 ...
— Hebrew Literature

... from the Emperor, together with a mild hint 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 of private family sacrificial ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... that on the outskirts of the forest there was a flat rock where it was the custom of those who had been in any way afflicted, or who considered themselves or their belongings to be bewitched, to place propitiatory offerings of food wherewith the Esemkofu and Amalhosi were supposed to satisfy their spiritual cravings. Urged by the pinch of starvation, to this spot Nanea journeyed rapidly, and found to her joy that some neighbouring kraal had evidently been in recent ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... After the expiatory and propitiatory ceremony the Reverend Father Douillard ascended the pulpit. The sermon had at first been entrusted to the Reverend Father Agaric, but, in spite of his merits, he was thought unequal to the occasion in zeal and doctrine, and the eloquent Capuchin friar, who for six months had gone through ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... whispered Mr. Snoop, "are supposed to waft a perfume or incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiatory wine and the aromatic spices are ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... Egypt, of the Indies, both East and West, and, indeed, of all the varied forms in which superstition has presented herself, and in one or in all you meet with evidences of a universal flood, of man's fall, of the serpent having been the instrument in it, of propitiatory sacrifices, of the expectation of a great deliverer. The long lives of men in the early ages of the world are mentioned by Berosus, Manetho, Hiromus and Helanicus, as also by Hesoid and many other writers quoted by Josephus, and afterwards by Servius, in his ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... exhibition of the interior of these receptacles. His invariable demand had become a habit with him. Therefore the little sugared black brick which now hit him in the eye came as an unprecedented surprise. For a moment he did not know whether to construe it as a propitiatory gift ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... As a propitiatory offering for the rest of the soul of the maiden who had thus avoided the monastic life, the knight in his deep sorrow vowed to build a chapel on the hill opposite his castle. Then Hans Broemser shut himself up in his ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... in the door a hand thrust at him a piece of paper, and the door slammed to so sharply that Luiz stepped back. Then approaching cringingly the keyhole, in a propitiatory tone he asked: ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... Sancha served to hasten on the catastrophe which was to stain the throne of Naples with blood: one might almost fancy that God wished to spare this angel of love and resignation the sight of so terrible a spectacle, that she offered herself as a propitiatory sacrifice to redeem ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... to the Supreme; and we could not have a figure more adapted to our purpose, as it leads us to show that Christ is the very ladder we need—He by His Divine nature reaching heaven, and by His human nature being set upon the earth. His infinite excellence and His propitiatory sacrifice assure us that this ladder is so strong that it can bear the weight of the whole of the human family in ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... burnt up, but the soul itself, being on the foundation, is safe. He said with firmness, That will be burnt up in this world; without holiness no man shall see the Lord. I said, True; but why avoid the tenor of Scripture? read all the epistles; the Lord Jesus Christ, the gift of God, the propitiatory sacrifice, the meritorious law-fulfilling righteousness, is set forth, in every one of them, as that which saves from wrath and entitles to eternal life. He said they were all emblems of our being ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... the less for being congratulatory. So handsome and dangerous-looking that the laugh died, they halted midway of the narrow incline, impeding the stream of immigrants at their heels, and sent up a fierce stare in response to the propitiatory smiles of the boat's commander and the youth standing near him. Only one of the twins spoke, but the eyes of his brother vindictively widened till they gleamed a flaming concurrence in ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... of endeavoring to secure protection for the dead through the power of the curses and propitiatory phrases inscribed on bowls continued in vogue as late as the ninth century at the least, and perhaps considerably later. There are indications also that Babylonian ideas found an entrance into the Jewish ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... only begun to feel slightly calmed when Ian presented himself, with a humble, propitiatory air. The old man hated humility in every form, even its name. He regarded it as a synonym for hypocrisy. The demon actually leaped within him, but the old man had a powerful will. He seized his spiritual enemy, ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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 ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... 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 against the defenders of the old faith, and on the second day the Catholic ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... 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 ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... their alarm, and 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 ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... thoughts of Heaven's anger; while the good-humoured face of the light-hearted Father Phil produced a corresponding brightness on the looks of his hearers, who turned up their whole faces in trustfulness to the mercy of that Heaven whose propitiatory offering their pastor was making for them in cheerful tones, which associated well with thoughts of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... and virtue. For whereas Christ, according as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so would he himself be exalted, that thereby as many as trusted in him should have salvation; but the devil would none of that: they would have us saved by a daily oblation propitiatory, by ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer

... laugh, with a "That'll be all right, Captain," was his answer. All this, words, intonation, the glimpsed attitude of the man in the cuddy, had an unexpected character, a something friendly in it—propitiatory. And my surprise was not diminished thereby. What did this call mean? Was it the sign of some dark ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... from which the hieroglyphics have been erased. This tells a tale, for in the age commemorated, it was a mark of disgrace to have the name obliterated. Another stela contains the jackal, or genius of the departed, with propitiatory offerings from his friends. The curious will learn with interest, that another of these monuments dates back to the time of Joseph. It has twice engraved upon it the name Osortosen—perhaps the Pharaoh 'who gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potiphorah, priest of On,' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various

... a priest, or Magus, who stood between him and the divinity as a Mediator. The Magus prepared the victim and slew it, chanted the mystic strain which gave the sacrifice all its force, poured on the ground the propitiatory libation of oil, milk, and honey, held the bundle of thin tamarisk twigs—the Zendic barsom (baregma)—the employment of which was essential to every sacrificial ceremony. The Magi were a priest-caste, apparently holding their office by hereditary succession. They claimed to possess, not ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He coughed. "I can quite understand—" ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... little short of 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 hesitation ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... few balls, my dear. You will like the dancing, I dare say, when you come out as a young lady." Her tone was propitiatory, even deprecating. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... no further propitiatory efforts, but sat and stared in simple blankness at the country, which seemed to increase in loveliness at each new point of view. Sometimes she saw sweet wooded, rolling lands made lovelier by the homely farmhouses and cottages enclosed ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... on his way, and reached the river Cephisus, men of the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He demanded to be purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified him, made propitiatory offerings, and also entertained him in their houses, being the first persons from whom he had received any ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... we are forgiven our sins and our guilt is taken away. By the present indwelling of that cleansing Spirit of the ever-living Christ, which will be given to us each if we seek it, we are cleansed day by day from our evil. 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,' not only when shed as propitiatory, but when applied as sanctifying. We must come to Christ, and there must be a real living contact between us and Him through our faith, if we are to possess either the forgiveness or the cleansing which are wrapped up inseparable ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... 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 ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... 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 this house full ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... 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 ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... JEYES lounges in. He is a man of about five-and-thirty, already slightly grey-haired, who has gone to seed. ROPER sits in the chair in the middle of the room rather guiltily and MRS. UPJOHN puts on a propitiatory grin. ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... family; grapes from Shansi or Shan-tung, hams from Foochow, and lichees from Canton, all form fitting vehicles for a declaration of friendship or of love. Now, too, the birthday gifts offered by every official in the Empire to his immediate superior, are supplemented by further propitiatory sacrifices to the powers that be, without which tenure of office would be at once troublesome and insecure. Such are known as dry, in contradistinction to the water presents exchanged between relatives and friends. The ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... the proprietor of one of the roughest houses in Limehouse. His expression, while propitiatory, was not friendly, but: ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... when he got the door open, and caught sight of lace and velvet, plumed hats and shining swords, he was not so drunk but that which the sight suggested enlivened and awaked him. He uttered an exclamation, threw the door wide, and stood making unsteady but humbly propitiatory bows. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... little chinchilla muff which she had forgotten. He regarded it with the concern of a woman, reflecting that she would miss it; and he must send it to her, and was wondering vaguely about a suitable box, when he became aware of a noise of insistent knocking mounting in a gradual crescendo from propitiatory timidity to confidence. The knocking was on the kitchen door, and Carroll went hurriedly through the house. When he reached the door it was open, and a tramp was just entering, with head cautiously thrust forward. When he saw Carroll, the unshaven, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... people who did not love her children did not love her; and that, if Hippy went, she went. We thought it a master-stroke of firmness to rejoin that Hippolyto must go in any event; but I am bound to own that he did not go, and that his mother stayed, and so fed us with every cunning propitiatory dainty, that we must have been Pagans to renew our threat. In fact, we begged Mrs. Johnson to go into the country with us, and she, after long reluctation on Hippy's account, consented, agreeing to send him away to ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... Archie, subsiding weakly against the chest of drawers. He gulped. "Of course, I can see you're thinking all this pretty tolerably weird and all that," he proceeded, in a propitiatory voice. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... 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 hazard. Such ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the offices of Dombey ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... you this," she said, pointing to the ingeniously-wrought box, which contained the wax likeness of Nitetis. Rhodopis had advised her to take this to the king in Bartja's name, as a propitiatory offering. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... a moment ago that they 'wouldn't mind'! Then how could they be angry with you, dear?" asked Miss Phipps, smiling, and Pixie bent her head with a quick propitiatory bow. ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... that assuaged whatever of incensed perception of her unacknowledged rival might be silently lurking in her proud heart; wheeling up to the pony-trap under cover of speaking to the men from Egerton Lodge, and restoring the Zu-Zu from sulkiness, by a propitiatory offer of a little gold sherry-flash, studded with turquoises, just ordered for her from Regent Street, which, however, she ungraciously contemned, because she thought it had only cost twenty guineas; anchoring the victimized Seraph beside her by ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... also attributes a God-propitiating significance to these performances, and plainly designates them as "merita" ("promereri deum"). To the best of my belief Tertullian was the first who definitely regarded ascetic performances as propitiatory offerings and ascribed to them the "potestas reconciliandi iratum deum."[270] But he himself was far from using this fatal theory, so often found in his works, to support a lax Church practice that made Christianity consist in ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... yards. They were no longer anxious to shoot poor people. He cursed the foreigners; then he reported Montero's entry and the rumours of the town. The poor were going to be made rich now. That was very good. More he did not know, and, breaking into propitiatory smiles, he intimated that he was hungry and thirsty. The old major directed him to go to the alcalde of the first village. The man rode off, and Don Pepe, striding slowly in the direction of a little wooden belfry, looked over a hedge ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... the family. Afterwards the lamas make little balls which are worshipped, and one of the family mounts the roof and invites the neighbours, who receive the balls from the lamas' hands and drink moderately of chang. Next, the figures are thrown to the demons as a propitiatory offering, amidst 'hellish whistlings' and the firing of guns. These ceremonies are called ise drup (a full life), and it is believed that if they were neglected life would ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... the cynical observer scope and told of a narrower, baser aspect of the fair but limited ambitions of my ostensible self. This "sub-careerist" element noted little things that affected the career, made me suspicious of the rivalry of so-and-so, propitiatory to so-and-so, whom, as a matter of fact, I didn't respect or feel in the least sympathetic towards; guarded with that man, who for all his charm and interest wasn't helpful, and a little touchy at the appearance of neglect from that. No, I mean something greater and not something ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... But none ever ascended. So 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

... continually burning. When a calm overtakes an English vessel, the sailors and passengers are always supposed to try what "whistling for a wind" will effect. In lieu of this method of "raising the wind," a Chinese sailor shapes little junks out of paper, and sets them afloat on the water as a propitiatory service to the divinity who has the welfare of seamen under ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... conception of Christianity is quite fully developed according to which the Gospel was a new law of life, with its prescribed holy seasons and hours for prayer; its sacrifices, though as yet only sacrifices of prayer; its fasts and almsgiving, which had propitiatory effect, atoning for sins committed and winning merit with God; its sacred rites, solemnly administered by an established hierarchy; and all observed for the sake of a reward which God in justice owed those who kept His commandments. It is noticeable that already ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... 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 fresh news ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... late in the day for him to seek an excuse to call at the Hermitage; yet on the afternoon following Dr. Bewick's departure he sought for one—one having reference to Estelle. He took with him a propitiatory little volume containing translations of well-known poems by one Amiel. Estelle was regarded as being immensely interested in French; she daily translated themes back and forth from her own language into that of Moliere. These singularly neat ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... to prevent them bringing evil on the land, and to insure a fruitful harvest. It was rather ominous that hail fell with violence, and lightning burnt down one of the palace huts, while the king was in the midst of his propitiatory devotions. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... of course misunderstood by those who were not adepts, and to their enemies seemed to be pantheistic. The calf of gold, made by Aaron for the Israelites, was but one of the oxen under the laver of bronze, and the Karobim on the Propitiatory, misunderstood. The symbols of the wise always become the idols of the ignorant multitude. What the Chiefs of the Order really believed and taught, is indicated to the Adepts by the hints contained in the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... but the afternoon was so lovely." She stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly, "I'm sure every one wants a cup ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... seemed to her that a thousand invisible spirits, hidden demons of good and evil, pressed about her, spying out her thoughts, counting her heart-beats, ready to pounce upon the least symptom of over-confidence and turn it deftly to derision. Oh, for an altar on which to pour out propitiatory offerings! But what sweeter could they have than her ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... roses you may be sure there is a moral," he had said. "You can see it sticking out its head, and, if you go to smell the flower, it scratches your nose." But on this occasion she had come with a propitiatory gift—introducing her friend Mr. Leavenworth. Mr. Leavenworth was a tall, expansive, bland gentleman, with a carefully brushed whisker and a spacious, fair, well-favored face, which seemed, somehow, to have more room in it than was occupied by a smile of superior benevolence, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... Caldwell. His manner was conciliating, propitiatory. "I'll take the chance," he protested, "that when you learn the truth you won't round on your own father. It isn't ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... She thought of the treasure she possessed in the affections of her lord; of his accomplishments, surpassing those of his contemporaries, his genius, his devotion to her.—Soon she thought, that all she possessed in the world, except him, might well be spared, nay, given with delight, a propitiatory offering, to secure the supreme good she retained in him. Soon she imagined, that fate demanded this sacrifice from her, as a mark she was devoted to Raymond, and that it must be made with cheerfulness. She figured to herself ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... three very long and uncomfortable days, the wind, with surprising constancy, has continued to blow dead ahead. In ancient days, what altars might have smoked to Aeolus! Now, except in the increased puffing of consolatory cigar-smoke, no propitiatory offerings are made to unseen powers. There are indeed many mourning signs amongst the passengers. Every one has tied up his head in an angry-looking silken bandana, drawn over his nose with a dogged air. Beards are unshaven, a black stubble covering the lemon-coloured countenance, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... 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

... 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 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Sheep, 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 goes the Moslem exegesis. In reality, ...
— 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

... had been made at the love-feast, and it was repeated now from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the once the class-meetings usually following this morning service would be suspended. Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashion that the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulder and spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more or less important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibule to shake hands and tell him how much they had enjoyed the sermon. His mind perversely kept hold of the thought ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... Priyamvada, throw yourself at his feet, and persuade him to come back, while I prepare a propitiatory offering for him, with ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... around a table garnished as I have described, eyeing the pies hungrily, but showing no disposition to touch them. I asked, in astonishment, why they were so abstinent. One of them replied that they feared the pies might be poisoned. I was quite sure, on the contrary, that they were intended as a propitiatory offering. I have always been fond of pies,—these were of luscious apples,—so I made the spokesman hand me one of the largest, and proceeded to eat it. The men watched me vigilantly for two or three minutes, and then, as I seemed ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... under a new moon or the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft gray rivers flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence—the error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver passed the wooden ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the door- steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on the top step, a bowing and propitiatory ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... two rows before the motionless Daman and his Illanun chiefs in martial array. The members of the council who had left their bench approached the white people with gentle smiles and deferential movements of the hands. Their bearing was faintly propitiatory; only the man in the big turban remained fanatically aloof, keeping his eyes ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... powerful hierarchical authority addressed its precepts to the mind and will of the individual. But at Rome, though the earliest traces and traditions of law show a certain consecration of morality, inasmuch as the criminal is made over as a kind of propitiatory sacrifice to the deity whom he has offended, yet in the ordinary course of life, so far as I can discern, the individual was left very much where he was, before the State arose, in his relation to ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... that happens," I said in a propitiatory tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous "Pshaw!" I suppose he meant that the unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He had been taken unawares—and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... Peasley's 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 of ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... divine presence and the assurance that that presence would be self-revealing and would manifest Himself to His people. So here the throne on which glory rests is what we call the mercy-seat within the veil, where, above the propitiatory table on which once a year the High Priest sprinkled the blood of sacrifice, and beneath which were shut up the tables of the covenant which constituted the bond between God and Israel, shone the Light in the midst of the darkness of the enclosed inner shrine, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... during many winters; yet never even in his experience had the lashes of ookiah struck so blastingly upon the tribe. Yea, they had even lost their fear of the tornarssuit and no longer brought propitiatory offerings of blubber to him. Yet being wise with age, early in the summer he had buried sufficient supplies beneath the floor of his house to keep him from starving. He scowled maliciously as he heard someone creeping through the underground ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... was down to about three dollars, that a generous gesture toward Fortune might be valuable. When you are nearly out of money, he reasoned, to toss coins to the gods—i. e., to buy something quite unnecessary—may be propitiatory. It may start something moving in your direction. It is the touch of bravado that God relishes. In a sudden mood of tenderness, he bought two dollars' worth of toys and had them sent to the children. He smiled to think how they would frolic over the jumping rabbit. He ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... retorted the doctor as if offended at the propitiatory tone of her friend. "And it is our right also. They blockade us, and they wish our women and children to die of hunger, ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the opening door awoke the light sleeper. She rose up on her elbow and stared around. The nurse advanced with a propitiatory smile. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... something purely external, forensic, even magical. It is connected, even down to our own time, with reliance upon the blood of Christ, almost as if this were externally applied. It has postulated a propitiatory sacrifice, a vicarious atonement, a completed transaction, something which was laid up for all and waiting to be availed of by some. Now every external, forensic, magical notion of salvation, as something purchased for us, imputed to us, conferred upon us, would have been utterly ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... similar custom was noticed by Captain Cook at the Sandwich Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa, to avert his anger; and not to express, as the same mutilation does in the Friendly Islands, grief for the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... 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 ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... that you did not pay the homage due to her beauty, or that it did not strike you as it does others, I cannot determine; but I hope she had some other reason than truth for saying it. I will suppose that you did not care a pin for her; but, however, she surely deserved a degree of propitiatory adoration from you, which I am afraid you neglected. Had I been in your case, I should have endeavored, at least, to have supplanted Mr. Mackay in his office of nocturnal reader to her. I played at ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... premises absent. They 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

... she made a further propitiatory advance, "It will soon be time for that hornets' nest, we must ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... heavy eyelids at the opening door conveyed the impression of a dark, mental weariness; and seemed somehow to give additional length to his white nose. His short, brown beard was getting very grey, I thought. With his lofty forehead and with his superior, yet propitiatory smile, I was of course familiar. Indeed one saw them on posters in the street. The notables did not want to talk. They wanted to be spell-bound—and they were. Callan sat there in an appropriate attitude—the one in ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... Faithful Departed Brother Azarias. Dr. Johnson on Prayer for the Dead The Doctrine of Purgatory Burnett. Mallock on Purgatory Boileau-Despreaux and Prayer for the Dead All Saints and All Souls Mrs. Sadlier. Leibnitz on the Mass as a Propitiatory Sacrifice Extracts from "A Troubled Heart" Eugenie de Guerin and her Brother Maurice Passages from the "Via Media" Newman. All Souls From the French. An Anglican Bishop Praying for the Dead "Purgatory" of Dante Mariotti. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... wife, who had reached Cairo, saw that the execution of the order was not put off till the end of March. Messrs. Voltera Brothers were also requested to forward another instalment of necessaries and comforts; and they were as punctual and satisfactory as before. For this postal service, and by way of propitiatory present, Shaykh Mohammed received ten dollars, of which probably two were disbursed. We therefore parted fast friends, he giving me an especial invitation to his home in the Hisma, and I accepting it with the firm intention of visiting him as soon ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... do not avail themselves of an alleged mode of obtaining forgiveness, which most men have never heard of; and the effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who was perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessity for a propitiatory victim; are modes of action which, ascribed to a human ruler, would call forth expressions of abhorrence; and the ascription of them to the Ultimate Cause of things, even not felt to be full of ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... 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

... straightened up. The half-peeled orange fell from his hand and rolled into the gutter, covertly speeded by a dextrous little kick. The unhappy Italian, believing it a mishap, made haste to select the biggest and juiciest fruit on his stand, and held it out with a propitiatory bow, but he spurned him ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... running between Suez and the South Seas have nothing more to fear from the fury of this gulf, in spite of contrary trade-winds. The captain and passengers do not prepare for their departure by offering propitiatory sacrifices; and, on their return, they no longer go ornamented with wreaths and gilt fillets to thank the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... of 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 (ilasomestha) the king, who now sends woes and many groans upon ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... hat and cap belonging to the ship's company, with a single exception, had been involuntarily given, as a propitiatory offering, to the god of Ocean. This exception was a beaver hat belonging to the captain; and this would have followed its leaders, had it not been kept in a case hermetically sealed. After the captain's stock of sea-going hats and caps had disappeared he wore around his head ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... progress toward us, and was wagging his cropped tail with such vehemence that it sounded on the boards like a light hammer on a carpeted flooring. At first I fancied that he recognised me, and I held out to him an encouraging hand, of which he took no notice. That air of propitiatory humility which I had seen in him when we had first encountered on Lorette was exaggerated to a slavish adulation. There is no living creature but a dog who would not have been ashamed to show such a mixture of transport and self-depreciation. He fawned, he writhed, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... half bare, and throwing a propitiatory bright glance at her audience on the other side of her, she commenced thrumming a kind of Giles Scroggins, native British, beer-begotten air, while Jim smeared his mouth and grinned, as one who sees his love dragged into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... number of Ainos mount, and after a prolonged struggle the neck is broken. As the bear is seen to approach his end, they shout in chorus, "We kill you, O bear! come back soon into an Aino."] When a bear is trapped or wounded by an arrow, the hunters go through an apologetic or propitiatory ceremony. They appear to have certain rude ideas of metempsychosis, as is evidenced by the Usu prayer to the bear and certain rude traditions; but whether these are indigenous, or have arisen by contact ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... camp." Since 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 ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... the king who had been her husband. It would almost seem as though this had been purposely omitted. On the other walls Ma-Mee, accompanied by her Ka, or Double, made offerings to the various gods, or uttered propitiatory speeches to the hideous demons of the underworld, declaring their names to them and forcing them to say: "Pass on. Thou ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... 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 an oracle like Isa. liii. made possible. And thus, as ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule

... frauds, which can hardly be termed 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

... 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

... manners. He describes how, salutes having been fired on both sides, the Indians are elaborately welcomed within the fort, where, after long silence and much tobacco-smoking, the subject of the visit is distantly broached, and the chief receives propitiatory gifts of brightly coloured apparel: "A coarse cloth coat, either red or blue, lined with baize, and having regimental cuffs; and a waistcoat and breeches of baize. The suit is ornamented with orris lace. He is also presented with a white orris shirt; his stockings are of yarn, one of them red, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... 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 ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... 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, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... Eloise, at first forgetting it, and then dreading it, could gather courage to proceed in the negotiations for the handmaiden's suit. She was vaguely aware that she was the last person in the world whose past conduct harmonized with the asking of favors, and she silently offered slight propitiatory sacrifices. Yet she did this so haughtily, in order still not to compromise her own dignity, that they would quite as well have answered the purpose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Levites who until then had ministered at the "high places" and the priests of the temple at Jerusalem was not de facto recognised. Internally, it is mainly characterised by its ideal of Levitical holiness, the way in which it everywhere surrounds life with purificatory and propitiatory ceremonies, and its prevailing reference of sacrifice to sin. Noteworthy also is the manner in which everything is regarded from the point of view of Jerusalem, a feature which comes much more boldly into prominence here than in Deuteronomy; ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... not propitiatory. Lady Hartledon, chilled and mortified, disdained to pursue the theme. Drawing herself up, she turned to go down to dinner, remarking that he might at least treat the children ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... world, and which have left their mark on the language of St. Paul and other early Christian teachers. These mysteries, roughly and broadly speaking, were of the nature of a religious reformation. They represented the discarding of the propitiatory idea in favour of the original ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz

... happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt of the mysterious potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man laughed, and would come down to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... an axe over his shoulder and accompanied by his wife, goes to a well or a stream. Here they clean a small space with cow-dung and make an offering of rice, flowers, turmeric and incense, after which the man, breaking his bangle from off his wrist, throws it into the water, apparently as a propitiatory offering for the success of the marriage. It is not stated what the bangle is made of, but it may be assumed that a valuable one would not thus be thrown away. As among some of the other Maratha castes, the bridegroom must ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... and playful form. I was standing by, when, after a week of feasting and feeding, that learned gentleman, accompanied by the whole body of wonderful men, entered the hall yesterday, where a sumptuous dinner was prepared; where the richest wines sparkled on the board, and fat bucks—propitiatory sacrifices to learning—sent forth their savoury odours. "Ah!" said Professor Woodensconce, rubbing his hands, "this is what we meet for; this is what inspires us; this is what keeps us together, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... rested awhile, set himself after much thoughtful planning to build a palace for the illustrious sons of Pandu. Agreeably to the wishes of both Krishna and the sons of Pritha, the illustrious Danava of great prowess, having performed on an auspicious day the initial propitiatory rites of foundation and having also gratified thousands of well-versed Brahmanas with sweetened milk and rice and with rich presents of various kinds, measured out a plot of land five thousand cubits square, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... Bald-faced Stag at the corner. Not a scrap changed since the last time he visited it—day when he rode the Major's roan mare slap through the saloon bar into the bowling-alley. Did it for a bet, and won it, too, and bought his mother a stuffed badger in a glass case with the money, as a propitiatory offering. Only another mile. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... discovered himself. In a moment he was changed. He found that he now feared to be inadequate, he feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality of his wit; astonished, he turned to the man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not think it would be like this. I must think of the thing ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells



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



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