(v. t.) The act of pardoning; forgiveness, as of an offender, or of an offense; release from penalty; remission of punishment; absolution.
(v. t.) An official warrant of remission of penalty.
(v. t.) The state of being forgiven.
(v. t.) A release, by a sovereign, or officer having jurisdiction, from the penalties of an offense, being distinguished from amenesty, which is a general obliteration and canceling of a particular line of past offenses.
(v. t.) To absolve from the consequences of a fault or the punishment of crime; to free from penalty; -- applied to the offender.
(v. t.) To remit the penalty of; to suffer to pass without punishment; to forgive; -- applied to offenses.
(v. t.) To refrain from exacting as a penalty.
(v. t.) To give leave (of departure) to.
Example Sentences:
(1) In an exceptionally rare turn, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, a panel appointed by the governor that is almost always hardline on executions, recommended that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison because of his mental illness.
(2) 'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio Read more “It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News.
(3) 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.
(4) A request for a pardon would require an admission of guilt, which the women have said they will not give.
(5) I appeal to the king of Saudi Arabia to exercise his power to halt the public flogging by pardoning Mr Badawi, and to urgently review this type of extraordinarily harsh penalty.” Badawi’s case was one of several recent prosecutions of activists.
(6) "It is genuinely difficult to understand the motives of the pardons campaign," wrote Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson in their book, Blindfold and Alone , arguing that there should only be pardons for those who were suffering from shell shock when they left their posts, while other soldiers who "were demonstrably guilty" of desertion "deserved the full rigour of the law by the standards of their time".
(7) He looks heavenward in prayer: "Pardon, Richard; they know not what they do."
(8) He then tweeted a reference to reports, met with horror among Democrats , that White House advisers were exploring the possibility of presidential pardons.
(9) On Thursday, the Russian office of Interpol requested an international search for Mikhail Khodorkovsky , a former oligarch and Putin critic who fled to Switzerland after he was released from prison on a presidential pardon in 2013.
(10) In one speech he brought the house down when he introduced his party’s Armenian candidate, Garo Paylan, as “pardon my French”.
(11) • US: Offshore clients include Denise Rich, ex-wife of notorious oil trader Marc Rich, who was controversially pardoned by President Clinton on tax evasion charges.
(12) The board of pardons and parole had received a letter on behalf of Pope Francis urging them not to allow Gissendaner’s execution, the first since the pope’s address to the US Congress last week in which he called on the United States to abolish the death penalty.
(13) While all agree the US President has the complete power to pardon,” Trump wrote , “why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS.” He added: Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) So many people are asking why isn't the A.G. or Special Council looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes.
(14) This year, we've had the anti-gay riot in the Kenyan town of Mtwapa, the arrest and subsequent pardoning of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga in Malawi and, of course, the " gay executions " bill in Uganda.
(15) Cameron: Nothing, that's the whole point … Rupert Murdoch: Pardon me for interrupting, sport, but I've just instructed my half-witted son that he is allowed to tell the truth to Leveson, after all.
(16) On 20 November Sannikov had to sign an application to Lukashenko for an official pardon.
(17) On Tuesday a federal judge in Austin refused Tamayo's request for a restraining order to stop governor Rick Perry and the Texas board of pardons and paroles from considering Tamayo's clemency petition until the procedure is "adequate and fair".
(18) "The sale of absolutions was the source of large fortunes to the priests ... God's pardon for crimes already committed, or about to be committed, was advertised according to a graduated tariff.
(19) But while Castro, who officially took over from his brother as president in 2008, announced pardons for nearly 3,000 prisoners, those hoping for a loosening of travel rules were disappointed.
(20) Glencore was founded by Marc Rich, the controversial oil trader who was accused of tax evasion by American authorities but was pardoned by President Clinton on his last day in office.
Ransom
Definition:
(n.) The release of a captive, or of captured property, by payment of a consideration; redemption; as, prisoners hopeless of ransom.
(n.) The money or price paid for the redemption of a prisoner, or for goods captured by an enemy; payment for freedom from restraint, penalty, or forfeit.
(n.) A sum paid for the pardon of some great offense and the discharge of the offender; also, a fine paid in lieu of corporal punishment.
(n.) To redeem from captivity, servitude, punishment, or forfeit, by paying a price; to buy out of servitude or penalty; to rescue; to deliver; as, to ransom prisoners from an enemy.
(n.) To exact a ransom for, or a payment on.
Example Sentences:
(1) The mother in Arthur Ransome's children's classic, Swallows and Amazons, is something of a cipher, but her inability to make basic decisions does mean she receives one of the finest telegrams in all literature.
(2) According to Ghazian, the regime cannot easily silence Ahmadinejad, because "he has two important assets: one is that he has the potential to act unexpectedly and, secondly, he has taken his opponents ransom by threatening to reveal their secrets to public."
(3) Professionals say the payment of ransoms by countries whose nationals are kidnapped encourages further kidnappings as they represent a guaranteed cash return.
(4) Other transactions are more blatantly criminal: Eritreans, who with Syrians and Afghans make up the majority of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean, are often driven “for free” from Khartoum in Sudan to Ajdabiya on the Libyan coast, where they are locked up and tortured until relatives pay a ransom.
(5) At the end of 2010, AQIM had reportedly received €50m worth of ransom money since 2003, with each western hostage worth around €2.5m to the countries that paid up.
(6) A new criminal offence will be created to make it illegal for British insurance companies to provide cover for terrorist ransom payments.
(7) The mining giants have made enormous profits at the expense of Mirarr traditional lands,” he said, “and they are now holding the word heritage-listed area to ransom.
(8) He told delegates: "It cannot be right that 3,000 people should be able to hold the city to ransom, stop people getting to work and jeopardise the economic recovery when the measures we are taking to reform ticket offices are an inevitable consequence of the success of the automatic Oyster [smart card] system ... and when we are able to make these changes with no compulsory redundancies, with no loss of earnings and with no station unstaffed at any time.
(9) Ransome-Kuti made her name as an activist with a mass protest against policies that increased prices for market women.
(10) As "Darien", it was the lookout for Ransome's boat‑loving kids.
(11) The official Anadolu news agency reported that no ransom had been paid and "no conditions were accepted in return for their release".
(12) Downing Street believed it had secured an agreement last year during the UK's presidency of the G8 which meant the group's members would not pay ransoms to terrorist kidnappers.
(13) As for the name, we have already pointed out the possibility that he could have used different identities.” But Calantropo said that while the accused man had indeed been briefly in touch with actual smugglers, he did so to ensure the release of three friends held for ransom by smugglers.
(14) What the State Department admitted today was the dictionary definition of a ransom payment and a complete contradiction of what they were saying just two weeks ago.
(15) (via @ dylanbyers ) Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) White House statement on meeting somewhat tough: "we will not pay a ransom for Congress reopening the government" October 14, 2013 John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) So...why even have a meeting?
(16) The US refuses to pay ransom for hostages, and, Diane Foley said, even threatened to prosecute the Foley family for raising money to do so, while European countries do pay.
(17) He said the pair's freedom was due in large part to the "professionalism" of Foreign Office officials and backed the UK's stance of not engaging in ransom talks.
(18) An exasperated David Cameron lectured fellow world leaders on Thursday night telling them not to succumb to Islamic State's ransom demands, as he warned at the Nato summit in Wales that such payouts merely funded more terrorism against the west.
(19) Sunday's attack in Tripoli targeted the Islamist lawmakers and officials Hifter blames for allowing extremists to hold the country to ransom, his spokesman Mohammed al-Hegazi told Libyan television.
(20) George Christopoulos, his press secretary, and Isaac Ransom, his deputy, resigned "on principle", according to CBC News.