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Extenuating   Listen
adjective
extenuating  adj.  Serving or tending to reduce the severity of guilt or blameworthiness; as, extenuating circumstances.
Synonyms: mitigating.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books



... sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors" (what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason. You will see that your acknowledgment of the last paper includes these extenuating facts, when you have leisure to re-read it (for I saw how hastily you glanced over that one in particular); you must do me the favor to peruse it much more carefully," drawing on his gloves coolly, "before ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit of extenuating circumstance. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... about it, it was a most deliberate kiss—a kiss without any extenuating circumstances. He was not even going away, and Agatha could only come to one conclusion, that they were either going to be married—or "they ought ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... for these we may feel pity, even if we do not understand and cannot enter into the cowardly weakness by which they were driven to betray their comrades. But in the case of the National Scouts there were no extenuating circumstances except perhaps that the greater responsibility rested on the men who paid in dross for the dishonour of ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... officer of the Colonel's merit and services," remarked the Adjutant, "was dragged off before daylight, and disgraced for what was in its very worst light but a simple blunder, made under the most extenuating of circumstances. Boys, if there be faith in Stanton's pledged word, matters will be set right as soon as the record of the case reaches the War Department. I am informed that he denounced the whole proceeding as an outrage, and telegraphed ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... of the Malay Peninsula. It will be found that the pictures thus drawn are not always attractive—what man's life, when viewed from the inside, ever is pretty to look at? But I have told my tales of these curious companions of my exile, nothing extenuating, but ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... jealousy. She knew that Richard must be going away with this girl for some reason connected with his professional work. Of course that work did not usually include consoling beautiful damsels in distress, but there must be extenuating circumstances. She put her unpleasant thoughts from her mind, and proceeded on her mission, to give her husband the warning message she had just received, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... own folks; it's nothin' to YOU," said the boy, suddenly beginning to struggle violently, as if inspired by this extenuating fact. ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... saw through the wall was not comforting. It was not a heroic soul that, stripped of its defenses, shivered beneath the scrutiny. In another mood he would have mended the breach, excusing and extenuating, but not now. He looked at himself without pity, and saw himself weak, slothful, devoid of all that was clean and fine, and ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... Israelites, and he allows it to be seen a little too much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating circumstance—he has ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... nevertheless. At the trial, the 'prisoner's friend'—in this instance, Garth's colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—pleaded extenuating circumstances. Garth's youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—all these things were urged by ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... on this principle, pardoning those who appear to have been led astray by ignorance of the criminality of the acts they had committed, and suffering the law to take effect on those only in whose favor no extenuating circumstances ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... great a stir as the murder had done, and gave rise, in that period when "extenuating circumstances" had not been invented, to long and angry discussions. Indeed, the marquis either was guilty of complicity or was not: if he was not, the punishment was too cruel; if he was, the sentence was too light. Such ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... felt sure that he acted on impulse, not realizing. You can't judge him by ordinary standards. It isn't fair," pleaded Juliet. "There was probably some extenuating circumstance in the background—something we don't know about. I hope you haven't been very severe. You ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... strangely. Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any person, who had not been a witness of the tumult, to believe that a sedition as formidable as that of Masaniello had been raging at Edinburgh. They in return accused the Treasurer, not only of extenuating the crime of the insurgents, but of having himself prompted it, and did all in their power to obtain evidence of his guilt. One of the ringleaders, who had been taken, was offered a pardon if he would own that Queensberry had set him on; but the same religious enthusiasm, which had impelled the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... unknown to genuine English. The use of "aggravating" for "provoking," in my boyhood a vulgarism of the nursery, has crept into almost all newspapers, and into many books; and when the word is used in its proper sense, as when writers on criminal law speak of aggravating and extenuating circumstances, their meaning, it is probable, is already misunderstood. It is a great error to think that these corruptions of language do no harm. Those who are struggling with the difficulty ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... have been supposed, that it was not lacking in freedom. Greene himself has left an account of one of these conversations, when he expressed, Bohemia-wise, his opinions of a future life and, without Aucassin's extenuating plea that he was love-mad, he exclaimed: "Hell, quoth I, what talke you of hell to me? I know if I once come there, I shall have the company of better men than my selfe; I shall also meete with some madde ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... bring that forward as an extenuating circumstance," replied Eugenie. These words were lost in the noise which the carriage made in rolling over the pavement of La Villette. M. Danglars no longer had ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... before Mr. Justice Yelverton. Sir Francis Bacon, the Solicitor-General, did what he could to save the revengeful Scot, but it was impossible to keep him from the gallows. Robert Creighton, Lord Sanquhar, therefore, confessed himself guilty, but pleaded extenuating circumstances. He had, he said, always believed that Turner boasted he had put out his eye of set purpose, though at the taking up the foils he (Sanquhar) had specially protested that he played as a scholar, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social decorum and propriety,—and the world demands that, instead of drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and trust ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... my reason is good or not. Technically I'm guilty of breach of contract and larceny of corporation property, but there are extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... who takes his own path in life, and will walk it though hell bar the way, never explaining, never extenuating, never excusing his course—something seems to emanate from such a chap that draws all eyes after him in a public place in a look between fear and desire. Sitting there in Tait's, my view of Worth cut off now by a waiter ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... I never saw them again. But you believe the father really was, then, a felon, a convict—no excuse for him—no extenuating circumstances? There was something in that man, Mr. Darrell, that made one love him—positively love him; and when I had to tell him that I had given up the child he trusted to my charge, and saw his grief, I felt a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Such an existence would make every man the keeper of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice, since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance. Each man would be strictly punished according to his talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation, it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation in the clearest ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... considering. "Well, I think perhaps you've hit it. However, there are some extenuating circumstances. Give a man a dozen years or so of the mental starvation of a New England wilderness, and then all at once fill him chock full of new ideas, and he gets a pain within him, just as painful a pain as if it ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... received with great applause, and Devereux and his companions were ordered to appear before their captors. The pirate captain was the judge, and two of the officers undertook to be counsel for the defendants. The case, however, was made out very clearly against them, and except extenuating circumstances, they had nothing to plead in their favour. Poor Charcoal had ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... you, Tommy," she said. "A man's standards are different, I know. There may be what you call extenuating circumstances—though I can't quite imagine it. I'm too tired to argue about it, Tommy dear, and you mustn't be vexed with me. I can't go into it with you, but I feel as if it is I—I myself—who have committed an awful sin. And it has got to be expiated, perhaps that is why my ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... at Lucerne that LORD RIDDELL and I had some of our most significant conversations. I set them down just as they occurred, extenuating nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... around me. Wholly wrapped up in thoughts of my love, I nevertheless could not cast aside all doubts; for, if Edmee had been silent about some of my actions, it was also possible that she had exaggerated her affection for me in the hope of extenuating my faults. I could not bring myself to think that she had loved me before my departure for America, and, above all, from the very beginning of my stay at Sainte-Severe. This was the one thought that filled my mind; I did ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... instance, have a right. And yet it has not been enough for succeeding generations that he atoned for his follies and crimes by death and infamy. They have fallen upon his memory: they have overlooked that extenuating circumstance of considerable importance, his age when elected; they have gone so far as to make him into a unique monster, no longer ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... for a bit after his new client was gone. He did not like either saloon-keepers or law-breakers, but this case seemed to him to have—to have—extenuating circumstances. His cogitations finally resulted in his going to Justice Gallagher's court. He ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... court-martial was summoned, 26th of June, at Utrecht, consisting of Hohenlo, Essex, and other distinguished officers. They found that the conduct of the prisoner merited death, but left it to the Earl to decide whether various extenuating circumstances did not justify a pardon. Hohenlo and Norris exerted themselves to procure a mitigation of the young man's sentence, and they excited thereby the governor's deep indignation. Norris, according to Leicester, was in love with the culprit's aunt, and was therefore ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... was no questioning the imperious need. She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and she looked at it without flinching and without compromise. Above all she had true vision of Stephen Arnold, glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. It was almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance, and be denied the soft uses of illusion; but if that note of sympathy had been offered to Hilda she would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely because she saw him that she loved him. His figure, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... story of the Alamo and of the six brave men there put to death by his orders, suggesting in a certain degree the atrocities of the Duke of Cumberland of which I have already spoken. Santa Anna, however, had Indian blood in his veins—an extenuating circumstance that cannot be offered in defense of the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... there no extenuating circumstances to be adduced on the part of the Japanese? Were there no acts of provocation on the part of foreigners? If we rely merely on the testimony of the complainants, the reply would be an unqualified negative. An impartial witness, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... bill is so evident, that those who appeared as its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... pleasant, so when he next shut off his engine, to speak to me, I did not wait for his question but assured him that I could see the German battery quite plainly. I hope the recording angel will take into account the extenuating circumstances ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... do it: he never contemplated it: the evidence is false; the charge is fabricated'. If you tell me you sit but as the judge of the fact in this case, Caesar,—if you ask me where and when he served against you,—I am silent; I will not now dwell on the extenuating circumstances, which even before a judicial tribunal might have their weight. We take this course before a judge, but I am here pleading to a father. 'I have erred—I have done wrong, I am sorry: I take refuge in ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... against such tameness, though she would not for all the world have had Reanda take Gloria back. Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... flattered himself, just a plain man—(s, a, i, n),—a plain, sensible, reasonable human being,—he could find no reason for forgiveness: a man who, in such circumstances, could kill himself, was a wretch. The only extenuating circumstance he could find in Jeannin's case was that he was not responsible for his actions. With that he begged Madame Jeannin's pardon for having expressed himself a little emphatically about her husband: he pleaded the sympathy that he felt for her: and he opened his drawer and offered ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... repaired; and that, by the junction of Bompart's squadron, he should be soon able to give a good account of the English admiral. These tumid assertions, so void of truth, are not to be imputed to an illiberal spirit of vain glory, so much as to a political design of extenuating the national calamity, and supporting the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... unendurable. The more she thought of it, the more convinced she became, that it was just such an antagonistic attitude which had prompted the beautiful, though wicked Borgia, to administer certain love potions to numerous unappreciative gallants. Deliberate, cold-blooded murder committed under such extenuating circumstances began to appear more in the light ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... end, turn into a virtue his too common fault of giving undue prominence to every passing emotion. He excels in monologue, and the law of the sonnet tempers monologue with mercy. In "The Excursion" we are driven to the subterfuge of a French verdict of extenuating circumstances. His mind had not that reach and elemental movement of Milton's, which, like the tradewind, gathered to itself thoughts and images like stately fleets from every quarter; some deep with silks and spicery, some brooding over the silent thunders of their battailous ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... me about the trouble here," Nestor said, "and I came to learn the exact truth from you. If you struck this man and rifled the safe, tell me so at once. There may be extenuating circumstances, ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... vengeance. It is due to Colonel B——— to say, that he acted in the investigation of his agent's conduct with the strictest honor and impartiality. He scrutinized every statement thoroughly, pleaded for him as temperately as he could; found, or pretended to find, extenuating motives for his most indefensible proceedings; but all would not do. The cases were so clear and evident against him, even in the opinion of the neighboring gentry, who had been for years looking upon the system of selfish misrule which he practised, that at length ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in the production of Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, "guilty, with extenuating circumstances." ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... must have been in correspondence with the rebel capital; and with this the crest-fallen L—— and his subordinate prepared to make their report to a superior not much in the habit of excusing failure or making allowance for extenuating circumstances. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... powerful creation of the book. In her, bigotry and its fellow-vice, hypocrisy, have done their perfect work, until she comes near to being a devil, and really does some devil's deeds. Yet even she is not without some extenuating traits. Her bigotry springs from her conscience, and she is truly devoted to her daughter's eternal welfare; she is of such a native frankness that at a certain point she tears aside her mask of dissimulation and lets Pepe see all the ugliness of her perverted ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... the collar and had jerked him to the head of the stairs. It is true; he kicked him downstairs. Not insultingly, or with bad feeling, but in a moment of emotional insanity, as the defense would say. This was an extenuating circumstance, and excuses Flannery, but the professor, being a foreigner, could not see the fine point of ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler

... individual had to contend may have been exceptional and unexpected, the measures which he adopted may have had untoward and unnatural results, and the crisis of the hour may have called for genius of a transcendent order. But in the case of Kiaking not one of these extenuating facts can be pleaded. His path had been smoothed for him by his predecessor, his difficulties were raised by his own indifference, and the consequences of his spasmodic and ill-directed energy were scarcely less unfortunate ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... introduction, I will, as briefly as may be, relate my experiences, nothing extenuating, and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... a madman. He rushed out and called the gendarmes. Of course I was tried for murder—but it was not murder—it was justice. The judge found extenuating circumstances. Naturally! He had a wife of his own. He understood my case. Now you know why I hate that dainty jeweled woman up at the Villa Romani. She is just like that other one—that creature I slew—she has just the same slow smile and the same child-like ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... Cornelias who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the jury, 'guilty, with extenuating circumstances.' ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... want you any more. Thank you for being so frank in the matter. As far as I can see, it is the only extenuating circumstance. Harding, Hazelton, ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... however, to argue like the Peripatetics (who have a neat method of controversy which they derive from Aristotle) but more nervously and pressingly; and general sentiments must be so applied to particular cases, as to leave us room to say many extenuating things in behalf of the Defendant, and many severe ones against the Plaintiff. But in heightening or softening a circumstance, the powers of language are unlimited, and may be properly exerted, even in the middle of an argument, as often as any thing presents itself ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... consideration the pleasure he may have in committing the deed, and in the prospect of gratifying his avarice or his revenge? We are hardly so formed as to sympathise at the same moment with the assassin and his victim. The degree of pleasure the former may feel, instead of extenuating, aggravates his guilt, and shews the depth of his malignity. Now the mind revolts against this by mere natural antipathy, if it is itself well-disposed; or the slow process of reason would afford but a feeble resistance to violence ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... largely conjectural in character, while there was strong evidence in his favor. Yet the judges of the court-martial seemed biased against him, and by a vote of three judges to two, he was again found guilty - "of treason, with extenuating circumstances," as ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... was the slackening of tightly pulled nerves; so I encouraged her as far as I dared without being suspected, knowing that it is best to open all vents when one's feelings have been dangerously pent up. As to my ability to cook!—why, there were extenuating circumstances governing this breakfast that should have excused it. Some ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... to their authority all magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government. These proclamations could not be prevented from reaching Paris; and the Court, abandoning their system of denying or extenuating the extent of the impending danger, began to adopt more energetic means for ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... as witchcraft had been practiced on them. But our Government ignores all occult dealings and will not believe in the dread power in the land. They deal very differently with these matters in Russia, where, in a recent trial of a similar nature, the witchcraft was admitted as an extenuating circumstance and the culprits who had burnt a witch were all acquitted. All natives of whatever caste are well aware of these terrible powers and too often do they avail themselves of them—much ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... rises a weird sound, as of a sucking pig in extremis. Your son, my unfortunate friend, is attempting, with his childish treble pipes, to formulate a masculine snore. This is a gross calumny. You never—stop!—well, on one occasion perhaps—but then there were extenuating circumstances. Very likely; but the child has grasped the fact without the circumstances, and has framed his conclusion as a universal proposition. It is a most improper induction, I admit; but logic, like some other things, is not to be looked for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... Such a confession of duty may be extorted from damned spirits, and therefore you would not draw this vail over the wretched wickedness of your natures, to the end that you may conceive well of yourselves. It is so far from extenuating or excusing, that the very conviction of the great obligation to love and obey God, is the greatest aggravation of the enmity. It is this which makes it the purest malice and perfectest hatred, that knowing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... century of our era, marking his strange vacillations between friendship and enmity to the great civilised Empire under the shattered fabric whereof he and his people were dwelling, and neither concealing nor extenuating any of his lawless deeds, least of all that deed of treachery and violence by which he finally climbed to the pinnacle of supreme power in Italy. Now, for the next thirty years, we shall have to watch the career of this same man, ruling ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... the title, and caused Kingston House to be built for her residence; fifteen years later her real husband succeeded to the title of Earl of Bristol, and she was brought up to answer to the charge of bigamy, on which she was proved guilty, but with extenuating circumstances, and she seems to have got off scot-free. She afterwards went abroad, and died in Paris in 1788, aged sixty-eight, after a life of gaiety and dissipation. From the very beginning her behaviour seems to have been ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... fell and no mention was made of extenuating circumstances, he understood everything. His face, which had retained a childish expression, suddenly brightened. "That means death. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... member of the legislature and is beginning to be a figure in state politics,—at least the one to whom the governor and all the fellows write when they want information about this county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer—yes, sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court knows, and the bar knows it was forged; ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... another—one which may well fill us with amazement. It is the remark of the foremost of recent English philosophical historians, that of all organizations in human history the Church of Rome has caused the greatest spilling of innocent blood. No one conversant with history, even though he admit all possible extenuating circumstances, and honour the older Church for the great services which can undoubtedly be claimed for her, can deny this statement. Strange is it, then, to note that one of the main objections developed in the Middle Ages against anatomical studies ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... state of our knowledge, it is certainly very difficult to see how the kindler of the vitai lampada, supposing him to have been responsible for his actions, can claim from a jury of human beings a verdict of absolute acquittal. But we can, even now, see certain extenuating circumstances, which evidence not yet available may one day so powerfully reinforce as to enable him to leave the Court without a ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... their pity for the men whose cause he pleaded. Once he flashed out in bitter mockery at Coxon, then jested in mild irony at Puttock and his "rich man's revolution." Returning to his text, he minutely dissected his own measure, insisting on its promise, extenuating its fancied danger, claiming for it the merits of a courageous and well-conceived scheme. Through all the changes that he rang, he was heard with close attention, broken only by demonstrations of approval or of dissent. ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... damaged the cause of Italy by thus endeavouring to blow hot and cold, is a fact which its warmest supporters no longer call in question. They now merely plead for extenuating circumstances on the ground that the damage was done unwittingly. "It would be unjust," the Nationalist Federzoni said in a speech delivered before the Chamber on March 16,[99] "to accuse the Italian Government of disloyalty or insincerity, but none the less the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... Parrish was a heartless scoundrel, the jury found extenuating circumstances for the woman, in spite of the fact that she had murdered an innocent man, so she escaped the extreme penalty. I was glad, although the strict justice of the verdict may be questioned. From Italy, from Emanuele, who was the woman's cousin, we learnt that when Parrish ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... not pardon her. She was a princess—how, then, could she pardon one who had dared to revile her? Every crime is easier to pardon than that of high-treason; for every other there may be extenuating circumstances—for that, never; it is a capital crime which a prince never pardons; how then, could Elizabeth have done so?—Elizabeth, Empress by the grace of God, as all are princes and kings ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... the jury, very much against the usual experience, appeared to be excessively severe. The bankrupt was sentenced to twenty years' hard labor. The man accused of murder could not even obtain the plea of "extenuating circumstances," ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... hall deserted" presents on the following day a grim reminder of the petty economies that for weeks hence must secretly be contrived in order to restore the balance of an overdrawn bank account. The folly of living beyond one's means may have this extenuating feature, that it is often an error due to generous, though indiscreet impulse, or to inexperience; but the folly of spending money lavishly on a few ostentatious "spreads" that are "beyond one's means" has no redeeming points. The deception ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... to give a fair, clear and judicial account of the man. I will attempt to present a brief for the people, and neither prosecute nor defend. I will simply try to picture the man as he once existed, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. As the original office of the State's Attorney was rather to protect the person at the bar than to indict him, so will I try to bring out the best in Moses, rather than hold up his mistakes and raise ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... afternoon. Miss Cameron may work off a full demerit, and before the Christmas Holidays, for being the prime mover in this orgy, I am told about," said Mrs. Tellingham, bitingly. "I understand there are some extenuating circumstances in the case of Ruth Fielding. She will have one-half mark against her record—to be worked off, of course. And, young ladies, I hope this will be the last time I shall see you before me for such a matter. You ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... introduction of the jury was a mistake. The Russian people, it was held, was not yet ripe for such an institution, and numerous anecdotes were related in support of this opinion. One jury, for instance, was said to have returned a verdict of "NOT guilty with extenuating circumstances"; and another, being unable to come to a decision, was reported to have cast lots before an Icon, and to have given a verdict in accordance with the result! Besides this, juries often gave a verdict of "not guilty" when ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... ashy pale, and speechless. Absolute silence reigned for a time, as the court awaited the prisoner's reply, if by any means he could offer some explanation, some possible extenuating circumstance, that might affect the judgment to be pronounced. None came, and ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... the mad fury of my people bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it; and I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... these different forms of utility fall very lightly in weight, and can not even be counted as an extenuating circumstance, when we compare them to the enormous evils brought on farmer and gardener by the hosts of those Coccides that visit plantations, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various

... thereby indicates that, in using the expression "to whore," he does so deliberately, and because it corresponds exactly to the thing, and wishes us to understand it in its full strength and compass. In calling the thing by its right name, he silences, beforehand, every attempt at palliating and extenuating it. Of such palliations and extenuations the Jews had abundance. They had not the slightest notion that they had become unfaithful to their God, but considered their intercourse with idols as trifling and allowable attentions which they paid to them.—Manger understands by ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... N. qualification, limitation, modification, coloring. allowance, grains of allowance, consideration, extenuating circumstances; mitigation. condition, proviso, prerequisite, contingency, stipulation, provision, specification, sine qua non[Lat]; catch, string, strings attached; exemption; exception, escape clause, salvo, saving clause; discount ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... family were taken to their tent some distance from the others and guarded by their friends. Later, an assembly was convened to decide what should be done. The majority declared the deed murder, and demanded retribution. Mr. Eddy and others pleaded extenuating circumstances and proposed that the accused should leave the camp. After heated discussion this compromise was adopted, the assembly voting that Mr. Reed should ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... has proved his innocence in regard to Lady MORDAUNT. Chicago had begun to look upon him with mildly patronizing favor, when he was accused of a share in a really first-class divorce case; but now that his innocence is established, there is no longer any extenuating circumstance which can induce Chicago to overlook the infamous ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... to talk, Bob Nickols," said Mrs. Rucker, bestowing a glance of approval upon the fierce young Corydon, followed by one of scorn cast in the direction of the extenuating-circumstances pleading Mr. Rucker. "A man's heart ain't much use to a woman if the muscles of his arms git string-halt when he oughter fight for her. Come a dispute the man that knocks down would keep me, not the buyer," and this time ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... not irremediable—who in a moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or, who have taken the life of another under the like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, parricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... be shocked," I said, "but she has the coolest head of anyone I know—I do not think of any man I would trust so fully to take a rational attitude in the end. We can explain to her what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to recognise them. She will see that we are considering ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... but, instead of acting like ony quiet, decent, well-brought-up laddie, and walking down to the school in time for the geometry" (the school believed that the master's eye rested on William Dowbiggin), "ye jumped clothes and all into the Tay." (There was evidently no extenuating feature, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... all that injures our own life or the lives of others, let us be very careful to discriminate, to draw the line where God would have it drawn, exaggerating and extenuating nothing. It is important to remember that while the motto of the old covenant was Exclusion, even of innocent and natural things, that of the new is Inclusion. Moses, under the old, forbade the Jews having horses; but Zechariah said that in the new they ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... about "extenuating circumstances," and "the whole not being told," but no one paid him any attention; and at last, snatching up his hat, he precipitately left the house, I sending after him a hearty good riddance, and mentally hoping ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... the past leaned heavily on extenuating circumstances. He had made many excuses for himself. But now he made none. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, under the pressure of that merciful, that benign hand, he was sincere with himself. He saw his conduct—that ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... time longer, talking in tender, motherly fashion; not extenuating his guilt, but speaking of the blood that cleanseth from all sin, the love and tender compassion of Jesus, His willingness and ability to save them to the uttermost that come unto God ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... but pleading also that there were extenuating circumstances in the case. We all know the story of the convict, who on the scaffold bit off his mother's ear. By doing so he did not deny the fact of his own crime, for which he was to hang; but he said ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... did eat more soberly at supper than at other times, and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinitive, might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantua governed, and kept ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... humiliating performance certainly," she said. "I don't wonder you are exercised about it. Are there no extenuating circumstances?" Miss Wellington appeared duly shocked; yet, being a woman of an alert and cheery disposition, she reached out instinctively for some palliative before accepting the affair in all ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... She objected to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements. She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a term of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... order to apply what one knows. In order to do even a little one has to know a great deal, and to know it well. . . . The right solution imposes itself; namely, the application, according to circumstances, of fixed principles. . . . Incapacity and ignorance cannot be called extenuating circumstances, for knowledge is within the reach of all" (Marshal Foch); and in the words of Napoleon's own maxim: "The only way to learn the art of war is to read and re-read the campaigns of the ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... husband first defiled the marital union, thus driving her to follow the general tendencies of the time or to seek solace in religious activity, for which she had too much energy. After due consideration of the extenuating circumstances, her faults and vices, such as they were, may easily be condoned. Because she was the wife of a powerful Protestant king, she was condemned by Catholics and by them regarded with suspicion; and, in order to save herself, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... complaints of "The Dial's" short-comings Emerson did not pretend to give any satisfactory answer, but his plea of guilty, with extenuating circumstances, is very honest ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of Mrs. Richards' purpose, even if they had doubted her statements. But Vera doubted neither. She knew the accusation was true; and when on Jimmy coming in a few moments later and finding her red-eyed and white-faced, she taxed him with it, he recognised the futility of denial, though he pleaded extenuating circumstances. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... the German submarine commanders have pleaded extenuating circumstances on which they based their presumption that the Marina and Arabia, were transports, and not passenger vessels, were these circumstances sufficient to have justified the commanders in mistaking ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... precision that extorted our admiration more than once. Cannons planted in Kehl sent their shells high over the citadel, like blows from a friend. An artillery that, after the third shot, found the proper curve and bent the cross on the cathedral, cannot plead extenuating circumstances ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... increase in the royalty fee shall be permitted based on any reduction in the average number of distant signal equivalents per subscriber. The Commission may consider all factors relating to the maintenance of such level of payments including, as an extenuating factor, whether the cable industry has been restrained by subscriber rate regulating authorities from increasing the rates for the basic service of ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office

... this dramatist, "I admit the soft impeachment. I plead guilty, with extenuating circumstances. The play's the thing; and if the facts don't suit my play, so much the worse for the facts. Success has been achieved, and what more can any living author want? Credit and cash. Voila ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various

... does not charge himself with the lies he tells for the good of his patients. He also comprehended the relativeness of words, the vagueness of conceptions, the faultiness of all communion, but was nevertheless not so broad-minded that he found extenuating circumstances everywhere and for everyone. His great power lay in his demand for fixedness of opinion. Growth and development were thereby excluded, but he sacrificed these, for the sake of the support so necessary to the herd, that ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... powerless to disturb him, had he not lost his own respect. He quailed before his own thoughts; he was dishonoured in his own eyes. His perplexity had not yet sufficiently cleared away to allow him to see the extenuating circumstances of the case; not to say the fact that the peculiar mental condition in which he was at the time, removed the case quite out of the class of ordinary instances of cowardice. He condemned himself more severely than any of his judges would have dared; remembering that portion ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... predecessors and appoint only two days, the First of January and the Fourth of July, for public receptions. On such occasions he begged Mrs. Dolly Madison to act as hostess; and a charming and gracious figure she was, casting a certain extenuating veil over the President's gaucheries. Jefferson held, with his many political heresies, certain theories of social intercourse which ran rudely counter to the prevailing etiquette of foreign courts. Among the rules which he devised ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... to write to this Mr. Van Styne, however, and ask for the truth, as I did not want to condemn the city man if there might be extenuating reasons for the sale. The old man in Morristown answered that he had been used as an instrument in the padded sale. He had known nothing of the manner in which the antiques had been brought from the City ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... thought they were right. They were, doubtless, wrong, but it was to save the remainder of the row of houses! Can you not consider this a plea for extenuating circumstances? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... and was told that there was a fear lest extenuating circumstances should prevent a jury from convicting me, if I were indicted for typhus or small-pox, but that a verdict would probably be obtained for measles, a disease which could be sufficiently punished in a person of my age. I ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... by his remarks on Edgar A. Poe. Mr. Kimball and others, who knew the Doctor, believed, as I do, that there was no deliberate evil or envy in those remarks. Poe's best friends told severe stories of him in those days—me ipso teste—and Griswold, naught extenuating and setting down naught in malice, wrote incautiously more than he should. These are the words of another than I. But when Griswold was attacked, then he became savage. One day I found in his desk, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... account the necessity of being just in our decisions. In domestic life especially, in which so much depends on circumstances, and the highest questions often relate to mere matters of expediency, how easy it is to be "always finding fault," if we neglect to take notice of explanatory and extenuating circumstances! Anybody with a tongue and a most moderate complement of brains can call a thing stupid, foolish, ill-advised, and so forth; though it might require a larger amount of wisdom than the judges possessed to have done the thing better. But what do we want with captious ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... to talk to. I fear that in any case I should not been inclined to attend the service, but there was something in my daughter's intonation that made me distinctly hostile to the idea. I am putting things down as they were, extenuating nothing. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... the discovery of that map affect your case or influence the decision of the jury? By the way, there is no need for you to worry about the result; I have had a frightful lot of experience in criminal cases, and so be assured you are all right: extenuating circumstances, you know. But—oh, yes, there is one thing more I wanted to tell you. A fresh witness is going to be called at the examination; let me see, what's his name? Dollon: that's ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... on impending elections, and above all, that heinous subject on which enormous fibs are ever told, the registration. There are, however, occasional glimpses in their talk which would seem to intimate that they have another life outside the Houses of Parliament. But that extenuating circumstance does not apply to the sporting dinner. There they begin with odds and handicaps, and end with handicaps and odds, and it is doubtful whether it ever occurs to any one present, that there is any other existing combination of atoms than odds and ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... youthful imagination. The world was made up of compromises. Good was mixed with evil everywhere. The domestic idea, as Hadria called it, might be, in its present phase, somewhat offensive, but it could be redeemed in its application, in the details and "extenuating circumstances." Valeria could not warn Hadria too earnestly against falling into the mistake that Valeria herself had made. She had repudiated the notion of anything short of an ideal union; a perfect comradeship, without the shadow of restraint ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... Simpkins. "That's better," he said. "If a fellow has to condone murder to meet your standards of what's a perfect little gentleman, you can count me out. Now, just you make up your mind that repartee won't take us anywhere, and let's get down to cases. There may be, I believe there are, extenuating circumstances. Tell him the whole truth and you'll find Simp. your friend, cad or ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... arrested. Their trial and condemnation speedily followed at Lancaster; and in those days it followed, of course, that they were executed. Otherwise their case fell so far within the sheltering limits of what would now be regarded as extenuating circumstances—that, whilst a murder more or less was not to repel them from their object, very evidently they were anxious to economize the bloodshed as much as possible. Immeasurable, therefore, was the interval which divided them from the monster Williams. They perished ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine, discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... there were certainly; but extenuating circumstances were seldom admitted in courts-martial, the law and practice of which were severe to the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... night he told me his story. He was an escaped convict from Freemantle, Western Australia. He had, with others, been taken up to the northern coast to do some Government work, and had escaped in the dingey. His crime was stealing funds belonging to a Squatting and Mining Company. There was this extenuating circumstance: he could have replaced the money, which, as he said, he'd only intended to use for a few weeks. But a personal enemy threw suspicion on him, accounts were examined, and though he showed he'd only used the money while more of his own was on the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... concludes (wrongly) that it must cost 1/2d. F. C. W. is so beautifully resigned to the certainty of a verdict of "guilty," that I have hardly the heart to utter the word, without adding a "recommended to mercy owing to extenuating circumstances." But really, you know, where are the extenuating circumstances? She begins by assuming that lemonade is 4d. a glass, and sandwiches 3d. each, (making with the 2 given equations, four conditions to be fulfilled ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll

... may be sufficient to oppose the authority of Sir Joseph Banks, who was of course much consulted by Park, and also by the Secretary of State; and whose opinion on this subject appears to have been equally temperate and judicious. Without in the least extenuating the dangers of the intended expedition, which he regarded as one of the most hazardous ever undertaken, he still thought that the dangers were not greater than might reasonably be encountered for the sake of very important objects; justly observing ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... Dangloss's voice and there was honesty in his keen old eyes. His charges now saw the situation clearly and apologized warmly for the words they had uttered under the pressure of somewhat extenuating circumstances. They expressed a willingness to remain in the prison until the excitement abated or until some one swore his life against the supposed murderer. They were virtually prisoners, and they knew it well. Furthermore, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... himself no trouble to enquire, and to intervene wherever he could rightly give scope to his longing for clemency. A Congressman might force his way into his bedroom in the middle of the night, rouse him from his sleep to bring to his notice extenuating facts that had been overlooked, and receive the decision, "Well, I don't see that it will do him any good to be shot." It is related that William Scott, a lad from a farm in Vermont, after a tremendous march ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... of beer. "Are you afraid of the truth?—But just one word, and I'm done. You no doubt knew, as every one else did, that Lulu was Schilsky's mistress. What you didn't know, was this;" and now, without the least attempt at palliation, without a single extenuating word, there fell from his lips the quick and witty narration of an episode in which Louise and he had played the chief parts. It was the keynote of their relations to each other: the story, grossly told, of a woman's ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... face and have created an admiration of their fearless daring, which has caused that they have been spared and dismissed unmolested. This sort of feeling had its influence on the present occasion in favor of the prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that hostilities between the white and red men in the west had as yet been uncommon; and the mutual fury had not been exasperated by murder ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... tell thee the glosses I put upon these heavy charges, what would it be, but repeat many of the extenuating arguments I have used in my letters to thee?—Suffice it, therefore, to say, that I insisted much, by way of palliation, on the lady's extreme niceness: on her diffidence in my honour: on Miss Howe's contriving ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... energetically that Byron's character was as great as his genius, but to do so only timidly. By way of obtaining pardon even for this mite of justice to the friend who was gone, Moore actually condescended to associate himself with those who pleaded extenuating circumstances for Byron's temper, like Walter Scott and other poets. But truth comes out, nevertheless, in Moore; and in the perusal of Byron's truthful and simple letters we find him there displayed in all his admirable and unique worth as an intellectual and a moral man. We find him ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... for his old messmate, and obtained leave to pay him a visit, anxious to ascertain if there were any extenuating circumstances by which he might obtain a ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... meaning of Raoul's carelessly uttered words and they had hurt her poignantly, but it was no new sorrow. He had told her himself months ago, callously, brutally, sparing her nothing, extenuating nothing. She pressed her cheek against the hand she was holding. She did not blame him, she could only love him, no matter what his life had been. It was Ahmed as he was she loved, his faults, his vices were as much a part of him as ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... a habit after it has through years been forging its chains about the youth, is in itself no small victory and should go a long way towards extenuating his lapse. The young man who can conquer himself and learn to lead a pure life, free from his early habit and above reproach not only in his acts toward womankind but also in all his thoughts of woman deserves ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... him without concealment, ask his impartial and unreserved opinion of your behaviour and condition. Our unwillingness to do this, often betrays to others, (not seldom it first discovers to ourselves) that we entertain a secret distrust of our own character and conduct. Instead also of extenuating to yourself the criminality of the vicious tempers under consideration, strive to impress your mind deeply with a sense of it. For this end, often consider seriously, that these rough and churlish tempers are a direct contrast to the "meekness ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... servitude! Better any death than that. It is good that my secret must die with me—that there will be no extenuating circumstances, no recommendation to mercy, no commutation of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... balanced on the other side of the room by an even more penetrating conversation unflaggingly maintained by a party of Americans, who were sitting in judgment on the cuisine of the country they were passing through, and finding few extenuating circumstances. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... expected to smoke. He looked her over as he lit his cigar—where she stood spreading her hands above the blaze of the logs, and concluded that she was much nicer upon acquaintance than he had thought. Her slight figure might not be beautiful, but beyond doubt its lines were ladylike. The same extenuating word applied itself in his mind to her thin and swarthy, though distinguished, features. They bore the stamp of caste, and so did the way she looked at one through her eye-glasses, from under those over-heavy black eyebrows, holding her head a little to one side. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... reporter, were on hand to testify to all that had been said. The young man made no attempt to conceal, but tried to explain more fully the circumstances which led to the act, hoping that in them the justice would find such extenuating elements as would prevent a ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... moment," she interrupted proudly, her cheeks darkening richly. "A trick, it is true; but there are extenuating circumstances. What I have told you HAS happened, only it was not to-day nor yesterday. Please remain seated till I have done. I AM poor; I WAS educated in the cities I have named; I have to earn ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... reality been benefited instead of injured. When you have acquired greater power of controlling your thoughts, it will be serviceable to you to think over all the details of the annoyance from which you are suffering, and to consider all the extenuating circumstances of the case; to imagine (this will be good use to make of your vivid imagination) what painful chord you may have unconsciously struck, what circumstances may possibly have led the person who annoys you to suppose that the provocation originated with yourself ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... which seems to trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating circumstances, and we might be ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... with a curious conceit of impertinent respect. In person the very embodiment of that insignificant vulgarity, without extenuating circumstances, which is the type in caricature of the ultimate cockney, he possessed a force of mind and an earnestness of purpose that absolutely redeemed him on close acquaintanceship. I found him all he had stated himself to be, and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... secret and dire necessity having driven her to sudden flight. He could see nothing but the bare brutal fact, its baseness, its vulgarity—above all its vulgarity, gross, manifest, odious, without one extenuating circumstance. In short, the whole matter reduced itself to this: a passion which was apparently sincere, which they had vowed was profound and inextinguishable, had been broken off for a question of money, for material ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... redeeming parts of a character, and a large toleration for the infirmities of men exposed to strong temptations. But this lenity did not arise from ignorance or neglect of moral distinctions. Though he allowed perhaps too much weight to every extenuating circumstance that could be urged in favour of the transgressor, he never disputed the authority of the law, or showed his ingenuity by refining away its enactments. On every occasion he showed himself firm where principles were in question, but ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... do!" cried Raffles, with such spontaneous heartiness that I could see he had never thought of it since mentioning the matter to me at our meal. What I could not see was any reason for such conspicuous relief, or the extenuating quality of a circumstance which seemed to me rather ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language, extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple, natural language of his thought. He spoke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation,—no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,—no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,—would ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a simple thing; a man had either broken the law or he had not; if he had, he should be punished. "Extenuating circumstances" was a phrase used only by the sentimental and the guilty. I recall, as I write, his telling me with some pride and an amused smile of a certain occasion, when he had wrung a verdict from a jury against their sympathies, that the spectators ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... of extenuating ill-conduct or making excuses! That's the modern way! So principles get lowered! I tell you, sir, there are excuses for everything. What makes the difference is only the listening to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... She clung, laughing, kissing. Let her.... "The doomed man ate a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs and seemed in good spirits." Reporters, with a sense of the dramatic, usually wrote it that way. Ham and eggs were a symbol. Should he mull around for extenuating epigrams—a fervid rigmarole on the mysteries and ethics of life? Or strike swift, short?... "Death was instantaneous. The drop fell at 10:08 A.M. sharp." Always sharp. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... reminiscences of the late War, I feel that it is necessary to ask their indulgence and to plead extenuating ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen



Words linked to "Extenuating" :   exculpatory



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