This week’s theme
Verbs

This week’s words
calumniate
floccipend
exonerate
foozle
propitiate

This week’s comments
AWADmail 736

Next week’s theme
Contranyms

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(pruh-PISH-ee-ayt)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To gain the favor of someone; to appease.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin propitiare (to make favorable, to appease). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pet- (to rush, fly) which also gave us feather, pin, impetus, pinnacle, helicopter, propitious, lepidopterology, peripeteia, petulant, and pteridology. Earliest documented use: 1583.

USAGE:

“A visitor from Jupiter might surmise that this civilization is required to bring grass sacrifices to propitiate some pastoral god.”
Clay Jenkinson; Those Who Whack Weeds Are the Chosen People of God; Bismarck Tribune (North Dakota); Jul 6, 2014.

See more usage examples of propitiate in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: