propitiate

Etymology

From Latin propitiāre (“make favourable”), from propitius (“favourable, gracious”).

verb

1. (transitive) To conciliate, appease, or make peace with someone, particularly a god or spirit.
   Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, The god propitiate, and the pest assuage. 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, Book 1, lines 191-192
   But polite and politic it is, to propitiate your hostess. 1849, Herman Melville, chapter 25, in Mardi, Vol. 2
   [H]e heard . . . one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned his rifle—the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gun god. 1910, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, chapter 30, in The Pools of Silence
   By saying unequivocally that conscription is not an option, the Bush administration and the Rumsfeld Pentagon, while propitiating the ghost of Vietnam, are also profiting from the success of the all-volunteer military. Sept 30 2001, Thom Shanker, “Who Will Fight This War?”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-04-21
2. (transitive) To make propitious or favourable.
3. (intransitive) To make propitiation.