exonerate
verb
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Where does exonerate come from?
Exonerate comes from the Latin verb exonerare, meaning "to unburden." That verb combines the prefix ex- with onus, meaning "load" or "burden." In its earliest uses, exonerate was applied to physical burdens—a ship, for example, could be exonerated of its cargo when it was unloaded. Later it was used in reference to the freeing of any kind of burden, including blame or charges of wrongdoing.
Examples of exonerate in a Sentence
Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 26 Mar. 2024
Prado’s report concluded that there was no indication of wrongdoing by any of the officers at the scene May 24, 2022, and that all responding officers should be exonerated.
—Anumita Kaur, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024
Decades later, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam were exonerated for the assassination after spending more than 50 years in prison.
—Aaron Bonderson - Nebraska Public Media, NPR, 8 Mar. 2024
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973 at least 196 people sentenced to death were exonerated in the U.S., 16 of them in Texas.
—Albinson Linares, NBC News, 22 Feb. 2024
The Sacramento police officer who shot a pepper ball that blinded a woman in one eye in 2020 — resulting in a $3 million city settlement — has been exonerated.
—Theresa Clift, Sacramento Bee, 22 Mar. 2024
But Hugenberg, sidelined during the Third Reich, was exonerated by a denazification court in the years after the war.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
An investigator hired by the city announced during a packed March 7 city council meeting all responding officers at the school on May 24, 2022, had acted in good faith and should be exonerated, to the dismay of many victims’ families and community members.
—Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, 15 Mar. 2024
None of that, however, exonerates the 352 Republican and Democratic members of Congress who voted for this idiotic, and patently unconstitutional, and irrefutably un-American, bill.
—Thomas Knapp, Orange County Register, 14 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'exonerate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Exonerate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exonerate. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
exonerate
verb
Legal Definition
exonerate
transitive verb
Latin exonerare to relieve, free, discharge, from ex- out + onerare to burden, from oner-, onus load
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