extenuation

noun

ex·​ten·​u·​a·​tion ik-ˌsten-yə-ˈwā-shən 

-yü-ˈā-

1

: the act of extenuating something or the state of being extenuated

especially : partial justification

… it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly—a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was.

—George Eliot

The best we can say in extenuation is to point out that glory rather than greed prompted this act of injustice to a seaman.

—Samuel Eliot Morison

2

: something extenuating

especially : a partial excuse

He persuades us that … he was poor and that he was financially burdened with a wife and four children. One shudders for any contemporary wretch who would come before Safire's pen with a similar budget of extenuations.

—Thomas Flanagan

Examples of extenuation in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Not surprisingly, fellow-travelers on the left criticized Conquest either from a wish to disbelieve the Soviet horrors or from an ideological sympathy that compelled extenuation of them. —Peter J. Travers, National Review, 29 Mar. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1543, in the meaning defined at sense 1