have mercy

have mercy verb: to show mercy or compassion; to stop inflicting punishment or a barrage.

Verb

have mercy (third-person singular simple present has mercy, present participle having mercy, simple past and past participle had mercy)

(imperative, usually) To show mercy or compassion; to stop inflicting punishment or a barrage.
- "I have learnt it!" cried the old man. "Oh, have mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presumption, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her!"1844 (date written), Charles Dickens, “Fourth Quarter”, in The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year out and a New Year in, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1845, →OCLC...
Synonyms:

spare

have mercy

Synonym of lawdamercy.
- Have mercy! Did you see her walkin by? I'll be thinkin about that sight all night!
Synonyms:

lawdamercy

third-person singular present	has mercy
present participle	having mercy
past participle	had mercy
past	had mercy

What does have mercy mean?: Have mercy means to show mercy or compassion; to stop inflicting punishment or a barrage.
What is have mercy in Hindi?: Have mercy in Hindi is दया करना (dayā karnā). See Have mercy meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is have mercy?: Have mercy can be a verb or an interjection.
What is the past tense of have mercy?: The past tense of have mercy is had mercy.

Adapted from Wiktionary: have mercy (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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