Pardoned

How to spell pardoned

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pardoned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pardoned mean?

1. verbForgave an offence, or officially released someone from the legal consequences of a crime.

Pardoned in a sentence

• The governor pardoned three prisoners before leaving office.

• She pardoned his late arrival once she heard about the traffic.

Where does pardoned come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb donare, meaning 'to give', combined with the prefix per-, used here in the sense of 'thoroughly' or 'completely', producing the Late Latin perdonare, 'to give wholeheartedly' and so 'to forgive'. The notion is that the wronged party gives up any claim to punishment, handing the offence away as a kind of gift. English took the word through Old French pardoner during the medieval period, and by the 1300s 'pardon' was settled in English with both its religious sense of divine forgiveness and its legal sense of remitting a punishment. The form 'pardoned' is simply the past tense and past participle, with the regular -ed ending. A useful spelling cue is the buried donare 'to give' inside the word: a pardon is a punishment given away, which keeps the single 'd' of 'don' firmly in mind.

How the word is built

• par- (from per-: thoroughly)
• don (give, from Latin donare)
• -ed (past tense/participle)