expiatory sacrifice

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

As the state Librarian dryly explained: "It is an expiatory sacrifice to veracity, to good sense and true taste."

From Time Magazine Archive

We rather wonder that no expiatory sacrifice on the scaffold was required of any of these knaves.

From The Conquest of New France A chronicle of the colonial wars by Wrong, George McKinnon

The combination of these three victims constituted with the Greeks as well as the Romans an expiatory sacrifice.

From The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) by Russell, R. V. (Robert Vane)

Her death was not avenged, perhaps because they considered it as an expiatory sacrifice.

From An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 1 With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. of The Native Inhabitants of That Country. to Which Are Added, Some Particulars of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King. by Collins, David

Evidently vicarious sacrifice and expiatory sacrifice are very ancient heathen ideas.

From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by Sumner, William Graham