noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Leniency: mercy or forgiveness in the assignment of punishment. countable, uncountable

   "There was lenience in the sentence given by the court, and he got the minimum prison time."

2. 2
   lightening a penalty or excusing from a chore by judges or parents or teachers wordnet
3. 3
   a disposition to yield to the wishes of someone wordnet
4. 4
   mercifulness as a consequence of being lenient or tolerant wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

acceptancecharityclemencycompassionenduranceforbearance

Example

More examples

"There was lenience in the sentence given by the court, and he got the minimum prison time."

Etymology

From lenient + -ence.

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