Word.ws English Dictionary

propitiative

/pɹəˈpɪʃətɪv/

propitiative adjective: serving to, or intended to, propitiate; propitiatory, reconciliatory.

Adjective

propitiative (comparative more propitiative, superlative most propitiative)

  1. Serving to, or intended to, propitiate; propitiatory, reconciliatory
    • The missive from Arthur was a short but complete and propitiative acknowledgment of his error and fraility.1902, George Washington Cable, Bylow Hill
    • A friendly word will bring him to my hand; but his behavior is never effusive, as it would be if he had found his rightful owner, but mildly propitiative and with a touch of sadness.1908, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Domesticated Animals

Forms of propitiative

comparativemore propitiative
superlativemost propitiative

Origin of propitiative

From propitiate + -ive.

Words formed from propitiative

Words that rhyme with propitiative

Questions about propitiative

What does propitiative mean?
Propitiative means serving to, or intended to, propitiate; propitiatory, reconciliatory.
What part of speech is propitiative?
Propitiative is an adjective.
How do you pronounce propitiative?
Propitiative is pronounced /pɹəˈpɪʃətɪv/.

Words near propitiative in the dictionary

  1. propitiates
  2. propitiating
  3. propitiatingly
  4. propitiation
  5. propitiations
  6. propitiative
  7. propitiator
  8. propitiatorily
  9. propitiators
  10. propitiatory
  11. propitious

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: propitiative (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “propitiative.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/propitiative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.