What's the difference between excuse and forgive?

Excuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To free from accusation, or the imputation of fault or blame; to clear from guilt; to release from a charge; to justify by extenuating a fault; to exculpate; to absolve; to acquit.
  • (v. t.) To pardon, as a fault; to forgive entirely, or to admit to be little censurable, and to overlook; as, we excuse irregular conduct, when extraordinary circumstances appear to justify it.
  • (v. t.) To regard with indulgence; to view leniently or to overlook; to pardon.
  • (v. t.) To free from an impending obligation or duty; hence, to disengage; to dispense with; to release by favor; also, to remit by favor; not to exact; as, to excuse a forfeiture.
  • (v. t.) To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
  • (v. t.) The act of excusing, apologizing, exculpating, pardoning, releasing, and the like; acquittal; release; absolution; justification; extenuation.
  • (v. t.) That which is offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or irregular deportment; apology; as, an excuse for neglect of duty; excuses for delay of payment.
  • (v. t.) That which excuses; that which extenuates or justifies a fault.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As he told us: 'Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.'
  • (2) We need to stop making excuses for them: But it is up to the state to close the loopholes Yes, the state must work continually to tighten and simplify the tax regime, which is a deliberate mess keeping an entire industry of accounting firms and tax lawyers fed.
  • (3) "With hindsight," he writes, "it was a trumped-up excuse for radical activism for its own sake."
  • (4) The Frenchman has been excused from duty at Everton on Saturday on compassionate grounds and the club have put no time frame on his possible return.
  • (5) Becton’s lawyer, Hannah Stroud, told a separate news conference that stress was no excuse for Casebolt’s actions and “the manner in which Ms Becton was treated was excessive, inappropriate and without cause” and a civil rights violation.
  • (6) Well, Machado put those skills on display on Sunday, and this is an excuse to bring you his ridiculous play against the Yankees.
  • (7) This prompted an angry response from the bill's sponsors who accused opponents of using border security as an excuse to block any immigration reform.
  • (8) This lovely coastal route also gives you an excuse to hop on the Skye ferry, which plies its way over the narrows to Kylerhea from the start of this walk.
  • (9) I think the French manager told him ‘it’s very difficult to watch you when you’re not playing for PSG’ – he hasn’t got that excuse now.” Palace are also well worth watching.
  • (10) I'm not a believer, and my only problem with artistic licence is when the phrase is used as an excuse to oversimplify a work to improve its marketability.
  • (11) Nothing in this context can be soft-pedalled and excused.
  • (12) He continues: “And a ‘no excuses’ culture where excellence is the norm.” Police were called by a member of the public shortly after 11am after reports of a disturbance outside the school in George V Avenue, where a number of parents and pupils had gathered.
  • (13) The current IRS controversy does not excuse sham political organizations masquerading as social welfare organizations, and shines a light on the critical need for campaign spending disclosure legislation.
  • (14) David Winnick, the MP for Walsall North, said: "None of [May's] excuses can explain away the sheer incompetence and shambles that have occurred on her watch."
  • (15) Sessions are scheduled regularly throughout the year and take place outside the hospital; interns are excused from their service responsibilities for the duration of the meeting.
  • (16) "There is no excuse to cut back on services that patients depend on.
  • (17) His team had been working on a protest-themed game for the past two years, and the frenzy surrounding Occupy Central gave them an excuse to release a prototype.
  • (18) After years of on-and-off e-dating, in which I've met 150-200 women, fallen in love with one and invented extravagant excuses to extricate myself from awkward encounters with countless others, you might think I'd be tired of it all.
  • (19) "We are always followed by a crowd of people – not journalists, but people who are following us and track our every move, and look for any excuse to detain us."
  • (20) The bar on religious weddings was meant to reassure the faithful, but the Church of England has twisted the weird and novel distinction between religious and secular marriages into an excuse to oppose the whole reform , while it is left to Labour's Yvette Cooper to speak for liberal Jews and Quakers who resent the continuing bar on them offering ceremonial equality.

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.