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PROPITIOUS
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Presenting favorable circumstances; likely to result in or show signs of success
Example:
a propitious alignment of planets for space exploration
Classified under:
Similar:
favorable; favourable; golden; lucky; prosperous (presaging or likely to bring good luck or a good outcome)
gracious (disposed to bestow favors)
Also:
auspicious (auguring favorable circumstances and good luck)
favorable; favourable ((of winds or weather) tending to promote or facilitate)
Attribute:
auspiciousness; propitiousness (the favorable quality of strongly indicating a successful result)
Antonym:
unpropitious (not propitious)
Derivation:
propitiousness (the favorable quality of strongly indicating a successful result)
Context examples:
You could not have chosen your subject better, and all contributory factors have been unwarrantedly propitious.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
She walked up and down the long saloon while waiting for Laurie, and once arranged herself under the chandelier, which had a good effect upon her hair, then she thought better of it, and went away to the other end of the room, as if ashamed of the girlish desire to have the first view a propitious one.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out—N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Martin had encountered his sister Gertrude by chance on Broadway—as it proved, a most propitious yet disconcerting chance.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
