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''extenuation'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904161329-00-⌔

extenuation - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

extenuation (countable and uncountable, plural extenuations)

  • (countable and uncountable) The action of extenuating; extenuated condition.
    • The action or process of making or becoming thin; an instance of this; a shrunken condition; leanness, emaciation.
      • ✤ This mightily helpeth the extenuation of members.1
      • ✤ A yong man…had an extenuation for want of nourishment in his Limbs.2
      • ✤ Galen commends tepid Baths for…curing all Extenuations.3
      • ✤ The extenuation is her only bad symptom.4
      • ✤ The female…exhibited…some symptoms of extenuation.5
      • ✤ Some pallid from extenuation.6
    • (of air, obsolete) Making less dense; rarefaction.
      • ✤ Winds proceed from extenuation of the Air, by the Sun.7
    • (obsolete) The action or process of making slender or diminishing in bulk; an instance of this.
      • ✤ All Dilatation is some degree of Extenuation.8
      • ✤ The Sea is the same at all seasons; what it gets by Rivers and showers, losing by exhalations and extenuations through the excessive heats…within the Torrid Zone.9
      • ✤ Gregory the Great…says that God penetrates everything without extenuation.10
    • (obsolete) The action of making less or weak; and instance of this; a weakening, impoverishment. Also, mitigation (of blame or punishment).
      • ✤ The saide citie is much decaid…not a little to the extenuacion of that part of this realme.11
      • ✤ Such extenuation let me begge, As in reproofe of many Tales deuis’d…I may…Finde pardon on my true submission.12
      • ✤ The gallantry of Henry’s heroique spirit tended somewhat to the… extenuation of Charles his glory.13
      • ✤ What Deeds of Charity we have to alledge in Extenuation of our Punishment.14
    • The action of representing (something) as slight and trifling; underrating; an instance of this, a plea to this end; a modification in terms.
      • ✤ Sometimes…wee humble ourselves lower than there is cause…And no lesse well doth God take these submisse extenuations of our selves.15
      • ✤ Through their… extenuation [of their grievance], wretchedness and peevishness they undo themselves.16
      • ✤ Many died of it every day, so that now all our extenuations abated.17
      • ✤ The utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity.18
      • ✤ The simple matter-of-fact style of the narrative is, from its unobtrusive character, more adapted for spiritual reading than the views and generalisations, and prologetic extenuations of more recent biographers.19
      • (rhetoric, obsolete) A figure in which a term is used which, in contrast with the more fitting term it supplants, understates or seeks to diminish the significance of something.
        • ✤ We call him the Disabler or figure of Extenuation.20
        • ✤ When for extenuation sake we use a lighter and more easie word or terme then the matter requires.21
        • 1706, Phillips:
        • 1823, in Crabb, Technol. Dict.
    • The action of lessening, or seeking to lessen, the guilt of (an offence or fault) by alleging partial excuses; and instance or means of doing this; a plea in mitigation of censure.
      • ✤ * Extenuation, by which the Crime, that seemed great, is made lesse.*22
      • ✤ He…was to find excuses and extenuations for sins.23
      • ✤ Whatever may be said for the Extenuation of such Defects.24
      • ✤ It may be urged, in extenuation of this crime…that [etc.].25
      • ✤ The differences of castes…furnish a copious stock of extenuations …to different classes of offences.26
      • ✤ In extenuation of a noble error.27
    • (US, humorous, in the plural as “extenuations”) Thin garments.
      • ✤ They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet.28
      • ✤ One side wore… extenuations of a…green colour.29

Etymology

An adaptation of extenuātiōn-, the oblique stem of the Latin extenuātiō (“a thinning or diminishing”, “rarefaction”; rhetoric “a lessening”, “diminution”, “extenuation”), noun of action from extenuō (“to thin, reduce, or diminish”). Equivalent to extenuate +‎ -ion. Compare the French exténuation.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɪksˌtɛnjʊˈeɪʃən/, /ɛksˌtɛnjʊˈeɪʃən/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1576, Jewell of Health, Baker, page 171 a: ↩

  2. 1655, Culpepper, Riverius, i.v.19: ↩

  3. 1707, Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, page 183: ↩

  4. 1781 October 27, Johnson, Let. Mrs. Thrale: ↩

  5. 1825, Betrothed, Walter Scott, section XXX: ↩

  6. 1828, “Biog.”, in Ann. Reg., page 474/2: ↩

  7. 1655–60, Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), page 64/2: ↩

  8. 1619, John Donne, Serm., xiv, page 140: ↩

  9. 1665, Sir T. Herbert, Trav., published 1677, page 186: ↩

  10. 1777, Joseph Priestley, chapter XIX, in Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, volume I, published 1782, page 229: ↩

  11. 1542–3, Act 34–5 Hen. VIII, c. 18: ↩

  12. c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], line 22: ↩

  13. 1654, H. L’Estrange, Chas. I, published 1655, page 1: ↩

  14. 1707, Atterbury, Serm. v. (1723), volume II, page 159: ↩

  15. 1614, Bp. Hall, Recoll. Treat., page 209: ↩

  16. 1621, Anat. Mel., Burton, ii.i.iv.ii.228: ↩

  17. 1722, Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, published 1840, page 6: ↩

  18. 1859, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ii. (1865), page 13/2: ↩

  19. 1873, R.F. Calixte, translated by A.V.S. Sligo, The Life of the Venerable Anna Maria Taigi, page 303: ↩

  20. 1589, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.), page 227: ↩

  21. 1657, J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., page 56: ↩

  22. 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ii., xxvii., page 156: ↩

  23. ante 1674, Clarendon, Surv. Leviath. (1676), page 180: ↩

  24. 1712, Addison, Spect., № 297, 1: ↩

  25. 1750, Johnson, Rambler, № 39, 7: ↩

  26. ante 1832, Jeremy Bentham, Wks. (1843), volume I, page 174: ↩

  27. 1839, Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, volume I, page 28: ↩

  28. 1881 May, G.W. Cable, Scribner’s Mag., page 23: ↩

  29. 1883 September 12, Pall Mall G., page 2/2: ↩

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