Word.ws English Dictionary

pardoning

pardoning is the present participle and gerund of pardon.

Meaning of pardon

Verb

pardon (third-person singular simple present pardons, present participle pardoning, simple past and past participle pardoned)

  1. (transitive) To forgive (a person).
    • O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    amnesty, remit
  2. (transitive) To refrain from exacting as a penalty.
    • I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  3. (transitive) To grant an official pardon for a crime.
    • The murderer, he recalled, had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence.1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC

See all 6 meanings of pardon

Noun

pardoning (plural pardonings)

  1. The act by which somebody is pardoned.

Forms of pardoning

pluralpardonings

Phrases with pardoning

Questions about pardoning

What does pardoning mean?
Pardoning means the act by which somebody is pardoned.
What is pardoning the present participle and gerund of?
Pardoning is the present participle and gerund of pardon.
What part of speech is pardoning?
Pardoning is a noun.
What is the plural of pardoning?
The plural of pardoning is pardonings.

Words near pardoning in the dictionary

  1. pardoner
  2. pardoners
  3. pardonest
  4. pardoneth
  5. Pardongate
  6. pardoning
  7. pardoning my French
  8. pardonings
  9. pardonless
  10. pardonmonger
  11. pardonmongers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pardoning (page history and authors); pardon (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: “pardoning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pardoning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.