extenuate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin extenuō (“to make thin, to lessen, to belittle”),^[1][2][3][4] taken from the past participle extenuātus or its stem.^[1][2][5][6] The participle had already given the Middle English adjective extenuat (“made thin, emaciated”).^[7][1][6] The Latin verb is formed from ex- and tenuō (“to make thin”),^[1][2][8][4] from tenuis (“thin”),^[2][8][4] which Etymonline takes from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”) and which is related to thin.^[2][4] Compare French exténuer, recorded from before 1365.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a past participle, of a person or body, made thin, emaciated: before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery.^[7][1][6] The verb, to minimize the gravity of a fault, is in the OED from 1532, in L. Cox's Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke,^[1] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged have "to make light of" in Thomas More in 1529.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

Classical Latin already combined the physical senses with belittling and with minimizing a criminal charge, the last in Cicero,^[1] and English took both groups within a few years.^[1] Etymonline treats "make thin" as the literal sense.^[2] From 1533 it was used in medicine for thinning the body and for making humours less viscous.^[1] Other uses followed: weakening (1547–1853), disparaging a person (1549–1705), reducing size or number (1555–1696), thinning air or a substance (from 1559) and beating metal into plates (from 1599).^[1] Johnson (1755) listed five senses, from making small or slender to making lean, with "palliate", the opposite of aggravate, fourth, quoting Othello's "nothing extenuate".^[10] From 1647 it could also mean excusing a person or action.^[1][5] The physical senses have since died out or grown rare, and Weekley found the word used chiefly in extenuating circumstances,^[9][1] a phrase Etymonline dates to the 1660s and Barnhart to Macaulay in 1840.^[2][6]

Timeline

• before 1425 – adjective, thin, emaciated (obsolete by 1755).^[7][1]
• 1532 – to seek to minimize the gravity of a crime or fault.^[1]
• 1533 – to make a person or body thin; to make a humour less viscous (both now obsolete).^[1]
• before 1535 – to present something as smaller or less important than it is.^[1]
• 1547 – to lessen the force of something; to weaken (obsolete by 1853).^[1]
• 1549 – to criticize or disparage (obsolete by 1705).^[1]
• 1559 – to make air or another substance less dense.^[1]
• 1599 – to beat metal into thin plates or draw it into wire.^[1]
• 1647 – to excuse a person or an action.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a crime or fault seem less serious, especially by offering partial excuses: He tried to extenuate the theft by pleading debt.^[11][4][1]
2. Of a circumstance, to mitigate an offence or lessen its guilt.^[1][5][11]
3. To excuse a person or an action.^[1][5]
4. (archaic) To make light of or underestimate something.^[4][11][5]
5. (archaic) To make a person or body thin; to emaciate or weaken.^[11][5][1]
6. (archaic) To thin out or dilute a substance.^[11][5][1]
7. (obsolete, 1549–1705) To criticize or disparage.^[1][5][10]

Adjective

1. (obsolete, before 1425–1755) Thin, emaciated.^[1][4]

Word family

• extenuative
• extenuator
• extenuatory
• extenuating
• extenuatingly

Related words

• attenuant
• attenuate
• attenuation
• attenuator
• extenuation
• tenuity
• tenuous
• thin

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins