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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



... handled between the rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians—a thing of its delicate texture—the salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing—at Lyons shall we say?—I have not the map before me—jostled upon four ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

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

... 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 ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... of gracefulness and fashions of address, The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress, And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats For mother dogs, and little acts of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... 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

... 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 neighbours; ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... fifteenth 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. The merits of these gentlemen—particularly ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... shut up within the 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 into a little ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... 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 the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... 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

... like manner to ornament the temples with the heads of sacrificial victims in the Greek and Roman worship. The eagerness of our sportsmen for the "brush," as the first trophy in the chase, has in all probability originated from the same propitiatory notion. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... nowhere could he see the name of 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: ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... (Ex. 30:7), the Lord commanded Aaron to "burn sweet-smelling incense" upon the altar which was "before the propitiatory": and the same action was part of the ceremonies of the Old Law. Therefore it is not fitting for the priest to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... (men and women together) empowered to be absolving priests. Even the very apostles never knew that they had any such power; and it is certain they never exercised it. They were perfectly innocent of being priests after the Romish type, and never dreamed of offering a propitiatory sacrifice. They simply believed that Christ had completed the work of propitiation once for all; and that there is now no more sacrifice for sin—that Christ only can forgive sins. Therefore in the words of St. John we are told, that "if any man sin (apostles and people alike), ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... 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

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

... assembled in the class room, for his moment. It was a somewhat piteous spectacle. Comber and some half a dozen friends in the middle of the room, and forty boys ranging in years from eight to twelve, waiting with white faces and propitiatory smiles, eager to assist in the Torture if they only ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... 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

... tribe, some particular quadruped or 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," ten men's strength and twelve men's cunning, but ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... not kind, only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive; not generous, only propitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; and not truthful at all—liars every one of them, to the very backbone of ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... hung up and are worshipped by 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)

... sacrificial meat 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

... 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; ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... unexpected 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. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... 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 ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... 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," ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... caused the trumpet to be sounded through the 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 and pardoned their ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... mystics, the quietists, the pietists, and quakers by the way, we can trace the stages of progress towards the idea of an immediate spiritual help, experienced by the individual in his forlornness and standing in no essential need of doctrinal apparatus or propitiatory machinery. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... 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, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... euphemistic tendency to call powerful spirits by propitiatory names. Just as the Greeks called the Furies "Eumenides," the benevolent ones, so is Robin called Good-fellow; the ballad of Tam Lin[38] refers to them as "gude neighbours"; the Gaels[39] term a fairy "a woman of peace"; ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... it is mentioned, as an indication of her special favor, that she once quarrelled with him for wearing too short a beard. But he afterwards gave her more serious displeasure by taking a wife, a gay and fair court lady of good quality; and he had scarcely pacified her majesty by the propitiatory offering of a great entertainment at his house in Chelsea, when he was carried off by a sudden death, ascribed by his contemporaries to his immoderate use of the new luxury of smoking tobacco. This prelate was the father of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... extol their religious value—as had already been done before; but he 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 ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... 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 ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... 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

... important 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

... 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 ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... 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

... my fault, you know"—he could not quell a sudden shamefaced laugh,—"if you'd kindly allow me to explain. I shall have to be quite brutally frank; but Mrs. Percifer said"—Here he lugged in a propitiatory compliment, which sounded no more like Mrs. Percifer than it fitted me; but mistaking my smile of irony for one of encouragement, he babbled on. I wish I could do justice to his "charmin'" accent and his perfectly unstudied manner of speech, a mixture of British and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... complied, and looking about him with a propitiatory smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in his mouth issuing ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... and dwelt between the cherubim, and was the symbol of the 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, the token of the divine ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

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

... 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, should have power to affect the eternal state ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... house-warming feast 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and ritual 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 ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark

... 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 ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... "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 mentioned in ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... once explanatory and propitiatory to all and sundry, Haring was reduced to inarticulate, choking interjections and paralytic motions of the hands, when a member of the delegation, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... he) began ever after the high priest had offered his sacrifice, and had been in the sancta sanctorum, as this jubilee of Christ also took place from his entering into the holy places, made without hands, after his propitiatory sacrifice, offered up for the quick and the dead, and for all yet unborn, at Easter. And it was the tenth day; and this now is the tenth day since." He hath told us also why there is not a certain day of the month appointed for Easter,(506) as there is for the nativity, namely, because ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... 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 design against ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... ground. At this new and entirely unforeseen calamity a 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 ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... chance to be inhabited by a spirit. The feeling of the country population on this point comes out clearly in the prayer which Cato recommends his farmer to use before making a clearing in a wood: 'Be thou god or goddess, to whom this grove is sacred, be it granted to us to make propitiatory sacrifice to thee with a pig for the clearing of this sacred spot'; here we have a clear instance of the tree regarded as the dwelling of the sacred power, and it is interesting to compare the many similar examples which[2] ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... he said, and his propitiatory smile was expansive and dazzling, "excuthe me buttin' in like thith. It theemth rude, I know—it doth theem rude; but the fact of the matter ith I'm a tailor—thath's my pithneth, a tailor. When I thay ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

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

... 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 gods in the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... of the Spaniards. Finding himself thus deserted, Mayobanex took refuge with his family in a secret part of the mountains. Several of the Ciguayans sought for Guarionex, to kill him or deliver him up as a propitiatory offering, but he fled to the heights, where he wandered about alone, in the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... 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 had attempted ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... 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 Sloane street with another story of his success as an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... and beneficent, as a tax to certain malignant furies—a propitiation, in fact, 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

... impertinent curiosity,' pursued the stranger, fluttering over Mrs. Sparsit's eyebrows, with a propitiatory air, 'but you know the family, and know the world. I am about to know the family, and may have much to do with them. Is the lady so very alarming? Her father gives her such a portentously hard-headed reputation, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... 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 Kabbala,—the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... temptingly fatuous; after which, and the exchange of another protest or two in the interest of justice and decency, and another plea or two in that of the still finer contention that even the basest misdeeds had always somewhere or other, could one get at it, their propitiatory side, our hero found himself on his feet again, under the influence of a sudden failure of everything but horror—a horror determined by some turn of their talk and indeed by the very fact of the freedom of it. It was as if a far-borne sound of the hue and ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... that Bessy was in the state of propitiatory eagerness which always followed on her gaining a point in their long duel; and he could guess that she was tremulously anxious not only to make up to him, by all the arts she knew, for the sacrifice ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... 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

... of good," and Ahriman, "the author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... Jarl's son," he said thickly. "If it is not against your wish, I will go with you." He made a propitiatory gesture to the group around the fire. "You will not take it ill, shipmates, if I leave you now, with many thanks for a good entertainment. The truth is that it has always been in my mind to visit this renowned Eric, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... illness. The winds are invoked in cases of affections of the breathing; fire in fevers and inflammations; water in dropsy, and diseases whereby the fluids are affected; and the God of earth when solid organs are diseased, as in liver-complaints, rheumatism, etc. Propitiatory offerings are made to the deities of these elements, but never sacrifices.] to Kinchinjhow for the recovery of a stout Lepcha lad (called Nurko), who showed no signs of animation, and had all the symptoms of serous apoplexy. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... said 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 ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... left the study, to telephone, he encountered Lady, very woebegone and cringing, at the door. When he returned, he beheld the remorseful little gold-and-white vixen licking her mate's hurt shoulder and wagging a propitiatory tail in plea for forgiveness from the dog she had bitten and from the Master whose Law she had broken by ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

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

... deficient in the joints of the little finger of the left hand, and some of both; some of the first joint only, others two, and many the whole of both fingers. On inquiry, I found that a joint is chopped off on any occasion of the illness or death of a relation or chief, as a propitiatory offering to the Spirit. There is a curious analogy between this custom and one related by Mr. Burchell as existing among the Bushmen tribe in Southern Africa, and performed for similar superstitious reasons to express grief for the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... 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 ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

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

... upon mutual tolerance, if it is likely never to be intensely happy, is also likely to be a pretty comfortable one. Mrs. Staggchase paid to her husband all her tithes of mint and anise and cumin, and she even sometimes presented him with a propitiatory offering in excess of her strict debt; only such a gift was always set down in her mental record as a gift ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... 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 ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... 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 ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... into it the unconscious girl and the almost equally helpless veteran. Then one mounted the box with the driver and another ran for a physician, who was directed to go to Mrs. Bodine's residence. The negro carefully moored Houghton's boat, feeling that there might be something propitiatory to the dreaded ghost in this act. He then hastened to his humble cabin, and filled the cars of his family and neighbors with lamentations over the lost boat and lost man, and also with self-gratulations that he was alive to tell ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... across the Yellow Sea, was the panacea he sought; but that, in order to obtain it, it was necessary to fit out a ship, with a certain number of young virgins, and an equal number of young men of pure lives, as a propitiatory offering to the stern guardian of the "elixir of life." The ship sailed, freighted as desired, and after a few days reached the western shores of Japan, from whence, you will readily imagine, the wily sage ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... 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 kindness on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Gerald rather 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 and exact productions of Amiel's ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... Mayley's good graces, and Tarradiddle, in all the glories of a brown coat, and an outrageously fine waistcoat, enters to make the scene complete, and to help to speak the tag, in which all the characters have a hand; Mrs. Glover ending by making a propitiatory appeal to the audience in favour of the author, who ought to be very grateful to her for the captivating tones in which she asked for an affirmative answer to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

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

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

... 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 ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... of Evil Influence, pestilence and death in the country, and as the time of new moon drew near, propitiatory sacrifices were prepared. A number of the courtiers of Golab Singh declared their intention of visiting sacred places and offering gifts. Many who abjured these rites went also as to a festival. On such an errand many supposed Lal Singh to be gone, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... Scrope was pale and a little untidy; he had already acquired something of the peculiar, slightly faded quality one finds in a don who has gone to Hampstead and fallen amongst advanced thinkers and got mixed up with the Fabian Society. His anxious eyes and faintly propitiatory manner suggested an ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... crucified." But, view it in the light of the doctrine that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, and what does it amount to? The sufferings and death of Christ derive their importance from the fact of their being propitiatory—an atonement. But for what shall they atone? For acts which were determined upon, as a part of God's plan, for his glory, and the good of the universe, millions of ages before the human actors were born; for acts which no more need to ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... 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—" ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... harp 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 public view, and is not the man ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... who 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

... 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 ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... said 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

... Egyptian purgatory, and its denizens constituted "the spirits in prison" referred to in I. Peter iii. 19, from which the astrologers claimed to have the power to release, provided their surviving friends paid liberally for their propitiatory offices; and, from this assumption, the clergy of the Catholic church derived the idea of saying masses for the repose of the soul. These doctrines were carried by Pythagoras from Egypt to Greece about 550 ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... 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

... the RIGHT OF 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 evinces, we behold, in its attending circumstances, joyful omens ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... 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

... making a crouching and timid 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, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... the Berlin Foreign Office looked to Count von Bernstorff to prevent a break. His attitude was represented as propitiatory from the viewpoint of the United States and opposed to the submarine warfare of Von Tirpitz. On several occasions he is said to have warned his Emperor personally that a continuance of the warfare against which the United States protested would surely lead to ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... rings with inscriptions, and two more 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various

... 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 his ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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 ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... 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 contemplation ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... 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 ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

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

... after putting his lordship in good humour by this propitiatory offering of a bull, continued to supply him, either directly or indirectly, by some of her confederates, with the most absurd anecdotes, incredible facts, stale jests, and blunders, such as were never made by true-born Irishmen; all which my Lord Craiglethorpe took down with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... She made 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 and sheltered by thick hedges and trees; once or twice ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... 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 ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

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

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

... gentleman, well dressed, comes in with a friendly but propitiatory air, not quite sure of his reception. His combination of soft manners and responsive kindliness, with a certain unseizable reserve and a familiar yet foreign chiselling of feature, reveal the Jew: in this instance the handsome ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... regard to the subjects to be discussed and 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 against the defenders ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... 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 fell into step ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... the text and title of this sermon, and the many excellent observations which it contains in illustration of both, there are several passages in it which the dissenters of the time would hardly consider as propitiatory towards the continuance of brotherly love. There are also various allusions to the parties which raged at the time, and some which appear to have been written in defence of the preacher's character, then severely arraigned by the Irish Whigs, and held in abhorrence by the people of Dublin, by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... the Lord commanded (Ex. 20:4) that they should "not make . . . a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything." It was therefore unfitting for graven images of the cherubim to be set up in the tabernacle or temple. In like manner, the ark, the propitiatory, the candlestick, the table, the two altars, seem to have been placed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... 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 ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

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

... my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held—there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm—a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... he 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 ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... Austin," she said in decided tones. "He would not approve 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 oblige ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

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

... Pandavas with Krishna, caused those celestial and human Rishis to perform the usual propitiatory ceremonies. And those heroes, having worshipped the feet of Lomasa and Dwaipayana and Narada and the celestial Rishi Parvata, O king, and accompanied by Dhaumya as also the ascetics that had been residing with them in the woods, set ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... time, however, his ill-controlled rage at various things, and especially at a good deal that he had misunderstood in my pamphlet, broke loose, I learned that it was not from any humane motives that he had spoken in such a propitiatory manner to me, but rather by desire of the King himself. On this point I received most accurate information, and heard that when everybody, and even von Luttichau himself, were besieging the King to visit me with punishment, the King had forbidden any further talk on the subject. After ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... penalty. Sometimes the civil or commercial law furnishes the analogy; and then, our sins being taken as a debt, Christ offers himself as a ransom for us. Or the analogy of the ceremonial law is accepted; and then Christ is set forth as a propitiatory or expiatory offering to obtain remission of sins for us. Regarding Christ as suffering for us in one or another of these Scripture forms or figures taken as the literal dogmatic truth, we have as many distinct theories. Then, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... crack 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 ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... for the weasel could be collected from the European languages and dialects. It is probable that these complimentary names were propitiatory, the weasel being an ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... "Doctrine," and this 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 the Law under the altered conditions of the nation. The basis of the ...
— Hebrew Literature

... 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 ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl

... who had reached Cairo, saw that the execution of the order was not put off till the end of March. Messrs. Voltra 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 Hism, and I accepting it with the firm intention of visiting him as ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... widely different from that of Schleiermacher. It has been oftenest associated with the notion of 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 impossible to ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... the west: They brought with them, as emblems of peace, not branches of plantain, but two young trees, and would not venture on board till these had been received, having probably been alarmed by the mischief which had been done at the tent. Each of them also brought, as propitiatory gifts, some bread-fruit, and a hog ready dressed: This was a most acceptable present, as we perceived that hogs were not always to be got; and in return we gave to each of our noble benefactors a hatchet and a nail. In the evening we went ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... first movement." The second began when the goats were unloaded. Mademoiselle took no chances with them. She got the agent to put ropes on them in the first place, and Kathleen and Louise, cautiously advancing to the plank, held up propitiatory offerings ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

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

... 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 ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... 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 ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... personage, whom she would not name, was particularly fond of it.—Wheel within wheel in the fine world, as well as in the political world!—Bribes for all occasions, and for all ranks! The timely present was sent, accepted with many thanks, and understood as it was meant. Per favour of this propitiatory offering, and of a promise of half a dozen pair of real Limerick gloves to Miss Pratt—a promise which Pratt clearly comprehended to be a conditional promise—the grand object was at length accomplished. The very day before the party was to take place ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... room to believe, that an articulate voice came forth from the propitiatory, or holy of holies, beyond the veil of the tabernacle, and that this voice was heard by the high-priest. If the Urim and Thummim did not make answer, it was a sign of God's anger. Saul abandoned by the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... the rude beginnings, though Jahveh was jealous, Ishtar, known locally as Ashtoreth, allured. Conjointly with Baal, the indigenous term for Bel, circumadjacently she ruled. The propitiatory rites of these fair gods were debauchery and infanticide, the loosening of the girdles of girls, the thrusting of children into fires. It may be that these ceremonies at first amazed the Hebrews. But conscientiously ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... 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; ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... a collection of all the matches in the party, Whistling Dick contributing his quota with propitiatory alacrity, and then they departed in the dim starlight in the direction ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... escaped through the type-setting room and down an outside stairway in the rear when that gentleman called. It gave an ironical turn to the incident that Mr. Pardriff was at the moment engaged in a "Welcome Home" paragraph meant to be propitiatory. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... clearly showing that the phrases vivere cum aliquo and habitare apud aliquem are not equivalent. — P. DECIO: this is P. Decius Mus, who at the battle of Sentinum in 295 gave his life as a propitiatory offering to the powers of the unseen world, in order to bring victory to the Roman arms. His father had sacrificed himself in the same way at the battle of Veseris (close to Vesuvius) in 340, fought against ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Rakshas as "uncle." The two brothers Kanran and Guja (in a Santali fairy tale bearing their name printed by the Rev. F. T. Cole in the Indian Antiquary, September 1875, vol. IV. p. 257), address a tiger by the same propitiatory title. The tiger in return addresses them as nephews, and gives them the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous

... was a cold and formal affair, and afterwards her father went off gloomily to his study, and Mr. Fortescue rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian nose upraised and his hands behind his back, pausing to look long and hard at the ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... 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



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



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