- excuse
- excuse vb Excuse, condone, pardon, forgive, remit are comparable when meaning not to exact punishment or redress for (an offense) or from (an offender). In polite use excuse, pardon, and forgive usually suggest a hope that one is not annoyed. Both excuse and condone imply an overlooking or passing over either without censure or without adequate punishment; distinctively, one may excuse specific acts (as faults, omissions, or neglects) especially in social or conventional obligations or the person committing them{
please excuse my interruption
}{the injustice with which he had been treated would have excused him if he had resorted to violent methods of redress— Macaulay
}but one more often condones either a kind of behavior (as dishonesty, folly, or violence) or a course of conduct or an institution especially when constituting a grave breach of the moral code or a violation of law{we condone everything in this country—private treason, falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double-dealing— Thackeray
}{slavery struck no deep roots in New England soil, perhaps because the nobler half of the New England conscience never condoned it— Repplier
}Pardon (opposed to punish) and forgive (opposed to condemn) are often employed interchangeably, but their implications may be distinct.One pardons when one frees from the penalty due for an offense or refrains from exacting punishment for it{pardon ten prisoners at Christmas
}{will you pardon my intrusion?
}{it became necessary ... to fly for our lives .... We could not look to be pardoned— Hudson
}and one forgives when one gives up not only all claim to requital or retribution but also all resentment or desire for revenge{to err is human, to forgive, divine— Pope
}{the wrath ... is past . . . and I, lo, I forgive thee, as Eternal God forgives I— Tennyson
}Remit is a synonym only in the idiomatic phrase to remit sins, in which it means to free from the punishment due for one's sins.Analogous words: justify, *explain, account, rationalize: acquit, vindicate, *exculpate, absolve, exonerate: *palliate, extenuate, gloze, gloss, whitewashAntonyms: punishContrasted words: censure, reprobate, reprehend, blame, Criticize: chastise, castigate, discipline, chasten, correct (see PUNISH)excuse n plea, pretext, *apology, apologia, alibi
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.