extenuatory

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ex·ten·u·ate

(ĭk-stĕn′yo͞o-āt′)

tr.v. ex·ten·u·at·ed, ex·ten·u·at·ing, ex·ten·u·ates

1. To lessen or appear to lessen the seriousness or extent of (an offense, for example), especially by providing partial excuses: extenuated his crime as part of his testimony.

2. Archaic

a. To make thin or emaciated.

b. To mitigate or lessen.

c. To belittle; disparage.

[Latin extenuāre, extenuāt- : ex-, ex- + tenuāre, to make thin (from tenuis, thin; see ten- in Indo-European roots).]

ex·ten′u·a′tive adj. & n.

ex·ten′u·a′tor n.

ex·ten′u·a·to′ry (-ə-tôr′ē) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive ?

A Manifesto (for Hesketh Henry)', the book's final, previously unpublished text, 'High Culture in a Small Province: Further Thoughts 1998-2013' is disappointing but, finally, extenuatory. In this essay Curnow seems to disperse much of the intellectual heat generated in the discursive or dialogic spaces opened up by his original manifesto of 1973, and explored with such intellectual enjoyment across 452 pages.