propitiate

So when an epidemic gets underway, we don’t waste time on sacrifices to propitiate angry gods or fretting about deadly miasmas seeping in with the night air.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 28, 2020

I suspect that Oskar probably still believes that it was just something in my nature: that somebody needed to be sacrificed on the altar on the way to propitiate whatever, and that that was him.

From Slate ● Jun. 28, 2016

Was it just to tell the date or propitiate some mountain deity?

From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2013

Mr. Talbott, who won the first Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for a new play with “The Submission,” understands the conflicting urges to propitiate and attack that spring from the insecurities of a life in the theater.

From New York Times ● Sep. 28, 2011

His dæmon growled softly; the golden monkey dropped his head low to propitiate her.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman

There is a humble, civil air about the people in the Vallée d'Ossau, which propitiates one: the berret is always taken off as a stranger passes, and a kind salutation uniformly given.

From Béarn and the Pyrenees A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre by Louisa Stuart Costello

One of nobler birth propitiates only the spirits of his own ancestors.

From The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell

And nothing so effectually as an evening bath, as my experience testifies, cures fatigue and propitiates to dreamless slumber....

From With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 3 by Various

And nothing so effectually as an evening bath, as my experience testifies, cures fatigue and propitiates to dreamless slumber.

From Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 by Harriet Beecher Stowe

They believe that shaving the head of the dead propitiates the deities in their favour.

From Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs by Jacob Mortimer Wier Silver

True to form, Iranians haven't been propitiated by such gestures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026

I promise I won't let our multithreaded discussion veer too far down the red carpet, but the Oscars are the Oscars; their vestal fires burn, their gods must be propitiated.

From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2014

For 700 years the Romans propitiated a special god of stem rust, Robigo.

From Time Magazine Archive

In India, however, the accused was feared and terribly propitiated by millions as Kali, goddess of death and catastrophe, wife-conqueror of the eternal Siva, the dancer.

From Time Magazine Archive

The gods had to be propitiated, and a vast industry of priests and oracles arose to make the gods less angry.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

He suggests that they may have perceived the cave walls as a kind of membrane between their world and the spirits, and thus created their paintings as a means of propitiating them.

From The Guardian ● May 23, 2020

On this teacher’s advice, the Dalai Lama had himself been propitiating this dangerous spirit – along with innumerable other esoteric rituals – as part of his daily four hours of meditation and spiritual exercise.

From Newsweek

At intervals, the afflicted colony found respite from its sufferings; and, through the efforts of the Jesuits, fair hopes began to rise of propitiating the terrible foe.

From The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman

Thus, propitiating mistress and fowls, the little maid and her dog were kindly made welcome for the night by the ancient hen-wife.

From Baron Bruno Or, the Unbelieving Philosopher, and Other Fairy Stories by Louisa Morgan

A timber merchant at Calicut in Malabar is said to have spent more than a thousand rupees in propitiating the spirit of a deceased Brāhman under the following circumstances.

From Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston