| 1. relating to an appeasing or expiating, having placating or
expiating force, expiatory; a means of appeasing or expiating, a propitiation 1) used of the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life of the people, the loss of which they had merited by their sins, was offered to God in the blood as the life of the victim, and that God by this ceremony was appeased and their sins expiated); hence the lid of expiation, the propitiatory 2) an expiatory sacrifice 3) a expiatory victim |