in Theology, is a sacrifice offered up to God to assuage his wrath and render him propitious. Amongst the Jews there are both ordinary and public sacrifices, as holocausts, and the like, offered by way of thanksgiving; and extraordinary ones, offered by particular persons guilty of any crime, by way of propitiation. The church of Rome believes the mass to be a sacrifice of propitiation for the living and the dead. The reformed churches allow of no propitiation but that one offered up by Jesus Christ on the cross. See Theology.