Sunday, April 10, 2011

#465 extenuate

extenuate- to represent an offence, fault as being less serious than it appears as by showing mitigating circumstances; to cause to be or appear less serious; mitigate; to underestimate or make light of

C16 from Latin extenuare to make thin

The swindler tried to dilute and extenuate his schemes by implicating other factions.

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