Extenuatory

//ɛksˈtɛnjuət(ə)ɹi// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Tending to extenuate or palliate.

    "Johnson has spread over Savage's character the varnish, or rather the veil, of stately diction and extenuatory phrases, but cannot prevent the observant reader from seeing that Savage was an ungrateful and insolent profligate."

Synonyms

All synonyms
assuasiveextenuatinglenitivelimitingmitigatingmodifying

Example

More examples

"Johnson has spread over Savage's character the varnish, or rather the veil, of stately diction and extenuatory phrases, but cannot prevent the observant reader from seeing that Savage was an ungrateful and insolent profligate."

Etymology

Compare Latin extenuātōrius (“attenuating”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.