Deprecating

She looked at him with a deprecating smile on her face.

He raised his hand with a deprecating gesture.

Theodora, with a deprecating look at Arnold Sherman, took his arm, and Ludovic marched her across the green amid a silence which the very horses tied to the storm fence seemed to share. For Ludovic 'twas a crowded hour of glorious life.

It is now clear that the term Hobson-Jobson was originally a deprecating Anglo-Indian slang term for the Muharram used particularly in the army and merchant navy but also more widely.