Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective serving or tending to reduce the severity of guilt or blameworthiness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
extenuate . - adjective That
lessens theseriousness of something by providing anexcuse
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective partially excusing or justifying
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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There may be what you call extenuating circumstances -- though I can't quite imagine it.
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"If you had been innocent -- even if there had been what they call extenuating circumstances -- I would have spent a fortune in the endeavor to set you free; but your confession renders me powerless."
Wife in Name Only Charlotte M. Brame 1860
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This law simply gives the police authority in extenuating circumstances during the course of a routine stop (traffic violation, etc).
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He was not a trial lawyer but still, technically, a lawyer, even if he barely believed it himself, and he would assess his guilt openly and present the facts attending the brief relationship and include those crucial circumstances so often and aptly described as extenuating.
Falling Man Don DeLillo 2007
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Someone always likes to bring up the idea of extenuating circumstances such as the father who steals bread for his starving children knowing it is wrong, but this does not prove me wrong.
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Creator of the Web site, DeadCaulfields.com, Slawenski is an unabashed fan, who has spent eight years sifting the few known facts of Salinger's life for the good bits, the gold-that is, the extenuating stuff.
Slate Magazine Blake Bailey 2011
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In Florida, you can be held for 21 days before you're released on your own recognizance unless the state has some kind of extenuating circumstances to hold you.
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They'll discover some kind of extenuating circumstance.
Balloon Juice Tim F. 2010
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Hence, the President's elitism becomes a kind of extenuating circumstance: Whether or not we're too dumb to get him, he's too rarified to get us, poor man.
The Corner on National Review Online Mark Steyn 2010
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Incapacity and ignorance cannot be called extenuating circumstances, for knowledge is within the reach of all "
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