What's the difference between acquit and forgive?

Acquit


Definition:

  • (p. p.) Acquitted; set free; rid of.
  • (v. t.) To discharge, as a claim or debt; to clear off; to pay off; to requite.
  • (v. t.) To pay for; to atone for.
  • (v. t.) To set free, release or discharge from an obligation, duty, liability, burden, or from an accusation or charge; -- now followed by of before the charge, formerly by from; as, the jury acquitted the prisoner; we acquit a man of evil intentions.
  • (v. t.) To clear one's self.
  • (v. t.) To bear or conduct one's self; to perform one's part; as, the soldier acquitted himself well in battle; the orator acquitted himself very poorly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He was, however, acquitted of criminal charges over this.
  • (2) Several top police commanders were acquitted, and Mubarak and his sons were found not guilty of corruption charges.
  • (3) An MRF sergeant was acquitted of attempted murder following a trial in 1973.
  • (4) She was then tried and acquitted on phone-hacking charges in 2014, leaving her to work out how to restart her career.
  • (5) 9 January 2012: Anwar is acquitted of sodomy charges.
  • (6) He was acquitted of assault by beating after a four-day trial in which his alleged victim, protester Nicola Fisher, declined to give evidence.
  • (7) After the murder he replaced Morgan at Southern Investigations to work alongside Jonathan Rees, who was tried for the murder and acquitted.
  • (8) While he was acquitted of rape, his remark that he took a shower after having sex with an HIV-positive woman to minimise the risk of infection caused fury.
  • (9) Francis Dixon, 38, from Stalybridge, was acquitted of the murder of David Short, the attempted murder of Hark and causing an explosion with a hand grenade.
  • (10) Colonel Jorge Mendonca was acquitted of failing to ensure that his men did not mistreat prisoners who were being held at a British detention centre in Basra, southern Iraq .
  • (11) In 2005 Mallah was acquitted of two terrorism offences but pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Asio officials.
  • (12) It’s about why this government chose to not upgrade Don Dale and to throw children in a derelict male prison.” Lawrence said the problems of juveniles in NT prisons had to be addressed “by a system that’s properly resourced, providing nothing less than best practice which is acquitted by fully qualified and professionally trained staff, creating appropriate behavioural programs and education for adolescent offenders of various types and backgrounds”.
  • (13) The 58-year-old, who recently served a four-month ban by the Football League for failing to pay tax on a yacht, was acquitted of customs offences on the Range Rover, which had been imported from the United States.
  • (14) Two recent high-profile cases have made the headlines: a doctor accused of administering drugs that hastened the deaths of seven elderly patients was acquitted, and France's high court authorised doctors to stop treating and feeding a young man who had been in a vegetative state on life support for six years.
  • (15) An inquest last year ruled that Harwood unlawfully killed him, but a trial jury acquitted the officer of manslaughter in July.
  • (16) If the various Ivan Milat murders had been tried individually he would almost certainly have been acquitted.
  • (17) Two years ago, Olmert was acquitted of separate corruption charges relating to his dealings with a US businessman, which had forced his resignation as prime minister in 2008.
  • (18) However, Azmi and others said that a series of terrorist cases in recent years in which Muslims had been suspected, investigated and often incarcerated for long periods before being acquitted had damaged trust in the police and, more broadly, the government.
  • (19) • This clarification was posted on 30 March 2011: An editing error in the footnote above wrongly suggested that all six men convicted, and later acquitted on appeal, of the Birmingham pub bombings were represented by Gareth Peirce.
  • (20) He directed them to acquit Payne of manslaughter and of intending to pervert the course of justice.

Forgive


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To give wholly; to make over without reservation; to resign.
  • (v. t.) To give up resentment or claim to requital on account of (an offense or wrong); to remit the penalty of; to pardon; -- said in reference to the act forgiven.
  • (v. t.) To cease to feel resentment against, on account of wrong committed; to give up claim to requital from or retribution upon (an offender); to absolve; to pardon; -- said of the person offending.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) One of the most interesting aspects of the shadow cabinet elections, not always readily interpreted because of the bizarre process of alliances of convenience, is whether his colleagues are ready to forgive and forget his long years as Brown's representative on earth.
  • (2) In 1999, Kamprad admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his "stupidity."
  • (3) Perhaps he is instinctively more forgiving about avoiding tax, which some right-wingers always regard as an indecent affront, than the free use of public funds.
  • (4) He argues that whenever you have periods of crazy expansion of virtual credit, like today, you either have to have a safety valve of forgiveness, like in Mesopotamia where you wiped the tablets clean every seven years, or you have an outbreak of social violence so intense you rip society apart.
  • (5) The euro elite insists it is representing the interests of Portuguese or Irish taxpayers who have to pick up the bill for bailing out the feckless Greeks – or will be enraged by any debt forgiveness when they have been forced to swallow similar medicine.
  • (6) But Blair's address - "history will forgive us" - was a dubious exercise in group therapy: the cheers smacked of pathetic gratitude, as he piously pardoned the legislators, as well as himself, for the catastrophe of Iraq.
  • (7) Please, forgive me,” Choi Soon-sil, a cult leader’s daughter with a decades-long connection to Park, said through tears inside the Seoul prosecutor’s building, according to Yonhap news agency.
  • (8) Resisting dictatorships is more worthwhile than accepting them and thinking things will change by themselves.” Asked if the suffering for a majority of South Sudanese citizens could be stopped if Machar and his colleagues gave up the fight, the rebel leader says “giving up would be irresponsible” and that “history would not forgive him” for it.
  • (9) Women are forgiving if you can make it seem like this,” Rock Hard writes.
  • (10) I believe this has made it more possible to forgive.
  • (11) But we’ll know if things have changed when we can walk down the street after dark without being stopped.” Ron McBride, 48, was more forgiving.
  • (12) And it has proved too forgiving of welfare abuse, too obsessed with universal human rights, and too enthusiastic about immigration.
  • (13) Sometimes the public’s legitimate fears are exposed: in Colombia there’s no doubt the public felt uneasy about forgiving Farc for its bloody violence.
  • (14) The hardest thing is forgiving yourself, but it is necessary to do that.” As for the rest of the world and its concerns, Baez is willing to offer her personal support to causes that are particularly close to her heart, most notably the campaign against the death penalty in the United States.
  • (15) Yet in the wake of the second world war, West Germany managed to secure 15bn deutschmarks of debt forgiveness, in what became known as the London agreement.
  • (16) "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but does Crystal Palace-Spurs not count as a London derby?"
  • (17) When Margaret Thatcher died in April 2013, the Sheffield Star led with the headline: “We Will Never Forgive Her” .
  • (18) Both forgiveness and justice were related but distinct constructs.
  • (19) But the journalist Alexander Chancellor, a friend since Cambridge, agrees with Stoppard that despite sometimes sounding "over censorious, he is actually incredibly warm hearted and very forgiving.
  • (20) In return, the survivors were expected to offer forgiveness and the courts to impose lesser sentences, often resulting in immediate release from prison.