Condone

How to spell condone

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce condone

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does condone mean?

1. verbTo accept, allow, or tacitly approve behaviour that is generally considered wrong.

Condone in a sentence

• The company will not condone the use of expense accounts for personal travel.

• Teachers should never condone bullying among their students.

Where does condone come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb condonare, which meant 'to give up, to remit, or to pardon'. It was built from the prefix con-, used here as an intensifier meaning 'thoroughly', and donare, 'to give', which itself comes from donum, meaning 'a gift'. The literal sense was something like 'to give away wholly', and from there it shifted toward the idea of giving up a grievance, that is, forgiving an offence. English adopted the word in the mid-nineteenth century, and it first appeared prominently in legal language, where the condonation of a marital offence meant a wronged spouse forgiving and thereby waiving the right to act on it. Its modern, slightly disapproving sense of overlooking or tacitly accepting wrongdoing grew out of that pardoning meaning. The same donum root for 'gift' sits inside familiar words such as 'donate' and 'donor', which is a handy reminder that condone keeps the single 'n' and 'o' of 'done'.

How the word is built

• con- (intensive, thoroughly)
• don (from Latin donare: to give)
• -e