Self-pardon

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A pardon granted to oneself.

    "While there are arguments against self-pardons as improper forms of “self-dealing,” this is not one of them. The language in question has nothing to do with a self-pardon or even most pardon controversies. It simply means that a president cannot use pardon authority to prevent the impeachment of an executive branch official (including himself)."

Verb
  1. 1
    To grant a pardon to oneself. intransitive

Example

More examples

"While there are arguments against self-pardons as improper forms of “self-dealing,” this is not one of them. The language in question has nothing to do with a self-pardon or even most pardon controversies. It simply means that a president cannot use pardon authority to prevent the impeachment of an executive branch official (including himself)."

Etymology

From self- + pardon.

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