extenuate

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.

Nothing can extenuate the horror of acts he spent his adult life trying to avoid.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 10, 2022

In my initial salvo, I pointed out that Yglesias had minimized the harm of copyright infringement with a rationale that could extenuate theft of any kind.

From Slate • Feb. 2, 2012

Exceptionalism can be a dangerous faith because of how much it can extenuate and excuse.

From Time • Feb. 4, 2010

In New York the instinct to "Garland" the monstrous -- to extenuate brutality and make a victim of the victimizer -- is more attenuated than in the Ivy League.

From Time Magazine Archive

Neither have I any wish to ignore, or to extenuate, the objections which militate against such a conclusion, objections arising from considerations of a general character, rather than from any positive evidence.

From What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence by Gerard, John