Pardon

How to spell pardon

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pardon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pardon mean?

1. verbTo forgive a person, or to officially excuse an offence.
2. nounThe act of forgiving, or an official document remitting a legal penalty.
3. interjectionA polite expression used to ask someone to repeat themselves or to excuse a minor lapse.

Pardon in a sentence

• verb

  The governor agreed to pardon the prisoner after new evidence emerged.

• noun

  The lawyer filed a formal request for a pardon on behalf of her client.

• interjection

  Pardon me, I did not catch the platform number for the next train.

• verb

  Please pardon the interruption while the technician resets the system.

• noun

  He begged her pardon for forgetting their anniversary.

• interjection

  She murmured a quiet pardon as she squeezed past the seated guests.

Where does pardon come from?

Language of origin: French

Pardon entered English around the year 1300 from the Old French verb pardoner and its related noun pardon, meaning 'to forgive' or 'forgiveness'. The French word descended from the Late Latin perdonare, which was built from per-, meaning 'thoroughly' or 'completely', and donare, meaning 'to give'. The literal sense was therefore 'to give wholeheartedly' or 'to give up entirely', the idea being that to forgive someone is to surrender your claim against them completely. The same donare root sits inside everyday words such as 'donate' and 'donor', which is a useful reminder that pardon keeps a single 'd' and ends in plain '-don'. The word first arrived in religious and legal contexts, covering the remission of sins and the formal excusing of a crime, and only later softened into the polite everyday request to repeat or excuse something.

How the word is built

• par- (from Latin per-: thoroughly, completely)
• don (from donare: to give)
• -on (noun ending via French)