Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Inclined not to be harsh or strict; merciful or indulgent.
- adjective Not harsh or strict; merciful or generous.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Softening; mitigating; assuasive.
- Relaxing; emollient; lenitive.
- Acting or disposed to act without rigor or severity; mild; gentle; merciful; clement.
- Synonyms Forbearing, tender. See
leniency . - noun An emollient; a lenitive.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Relaxing; emollient; softening; assuasive; -- sometimes followed by
of . - adjective Mild; clement; merciful; not rigorous or severe
- noun (Med.) A lenitive; an emollient.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Lax ;tolerant ofdeviation ;permissive ; notstrict . - noun medicine A
lenitive ; anemollient .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective characterized by tolerance and mercy
- adjective tolerant or lenient
- adjective not strict
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Robert Mugabe's cabinet, arose from his criticism of what he called lenient sentences imposed by a High Court judge on three American missionaries for possession of arms.
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And remember, sometimes that mistake is being too lenient from the beginning.
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Court reviews 'lenient' sentence for rape court in East China's Zhejiang province will rehear a controversial trial that handed down what the public called a lenient sentence to two
WN.com - Articles related to Mafias expose China's legal woes 2009
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He was severely reprimanded on more than one occasion for being too lenient - in other words, too gentlemanly - and finally my letters, received or written, which had been submitted to him for examination, were transferred to the detective Dennis, who, in order to seem vigilant in proportion to his former stolidity, returned me the simplest note, as being offensive to the canaille of the
Documenting the American South: The Southern Experience in 19-th Century America 1863
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With such individuals the proctor's sons were disposed to be lenient, which is certainly more than could be said if he himself had to deal with them.
The Tithe-Proctor The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two William Carleton 1831
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And testing companies are businesses that compete with one another for contracts, so they know the benefits of providing favourable laboratory results and becoming known as the lenient lab, says Midler.
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The sentences were shorter than the maximum penalty of two years, and were described as lenient by prosecutors.
Taipei Times 2008
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The FACT is – we're partly in this whole mess because Congress (under Clinton) decided lendors should be pressed to use more "lenient" lending practices helping low-income people get into houses & mortgages they otherwise could not afford.
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It's kind of hypocritical, considering how "lenient" they are with their own pedophile priests.
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But the study found that achieving "lenient" control of fewer than 110 heart beats per minute was at least as effective in preventing death from cardiovascular causes, stroke and other life-threatening events.
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