Word.ws English Dictionary

condoning

condoning is the present participle and gerund of condone.

Meaning of condone

Verb

condone (third-person singular simple present condones, present participle condoning, simple past and past participle condoned)

  1. (transitive) To forgive, excuse or overlook (something that is considered morally wrong, offensive, or generally disliked).
    • ‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police[…]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 18, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
  2. (transitive) To allow, accept or permit (something that is considered morally wrong, offensive, or generally disliked).
    • Rule-utilitarianism is unlikely to condone torturing a child, but it does imply that the torturing of a child is less evil if the torturer shares his pleasure with other sadists-perhaps by inviting an audience, or broadcasting it on the Internet.2001, Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, page 29
  3. (transitive) To forgive (marital infidelity or other marital offense).

Questions about condoning

What is condoning the present participle and gerund of?
Condoning is the present participle and gerund of condone.

Words near condoning in the dictionary

  1. condonements
  2. condoner
  3. condoners
  4. condones
  5. Condong
  6. condoning
  7. Condons
  8. condop
  9. condops
  10. condor
  11. Condor moment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: condoning (page history and authors); condone (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “condoning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/condoning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.