extenuate

• For weeks I had hesitated between Othello's “Nothing extenuate, nor write down aught in malice,” and Pilate's “What is truth?” as my guide and my apology. —  The Story of My Life
• He did not extenuate, he rather emphasized, the criminality of Catiline and his confederates; but for that reason and because for the present no reasonable person felt the slightest uncertainty about it, he advised them to keep within the lines which the law had marked out for them. —  Caesar: A Sketch
• Plead not “not guilty.” Do not excuse or extenuate, but aggravate your guilt. —  The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
• There were modes of punishment which no prejudice could extenuate: among these, the infliction of the lash in a form which degraded society more than it debased the sufferer. —  The History of Tasmania , Volume II
• But in all this I may have been, and probably was, in error; I have no wish to extenuate or explain away any fault or crime of which I may have been guilty; I choose, rather, the language of penitence and confession; and although I may never perhaps be forgiven by society, I shall cherish the hope of being more mercifully dealt with by Him who said, with reference to a greater sin than mine, "Go, and sin no more Thus the days and weeks passed away, while I still hoped and believed that no one would appear to witness against me. —  Six Years in the Prisons of England

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

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