How to use excuse in a sentence
40 example sentences · verb, noun
Excuse means to forgive; to pardon; to overlook. Example: “I excused him his transgressions.”
Examples of excuse by meaning
verbTo forgive; to pardon; to overlook.
- I excused him his transgressions.
verbTo allow to leave, or release from any obligation.
- May I be excused from the table?
- I excused myself from the proceedings to think over what I'd heard.
verbTo provide an excuse for; to justify.
- You know he shouldn't have done it, so don't try to excuse his behavior!
nounAn explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault.
- Tell me why you were late – and I don't want to hear any excuses!
- I had to make an excuse for being late to the meeting.
- a feeble excuse
nounAn example of something that is substandard or of inferior quality.
- That thing is a poor excuse for a gingerbread man. Hasn't anyone taught you how to bake?
- He's a sorry excuse for a doctor.
- What a fucking lame excuse for a man.2008, Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap, London: Atlantic Books, page 131
More sentences with excuse
- He gave a convoluted explanation that amounted to little more than a weak excuse for his absence.From the entry convoluted
- Excuse me, sir, do you know the way to the art museum?From the entry sir
- He had like a quintillion excuses for why he couldn't meet his obligation to me.From the entry quintillion
- He had a really lame excuse for missing the birthday party.From the entry lame
- When I phoned up, I was fobbed off with a string of excuses.From the entry fob off
- Excuse me Ma'am, will Miss Julia and Miss Emily be staying for tea?From the entry miss
- I suppose you can put it down to gross stupidity, but that's not much of an excuse.From the entry stupidity
- Horsefeathers! You knew it was a bad idea and now you're just making excuses about it.From the entry horsefeathers
- I can think up plenty of excuses not to go, but we really should attend.From the entry think up
- When asked for his book report, Chad came up with a series of hokier and hokier excuses.From the entry hokey
- Insomuch as you have consistently paid the bill on time before, we'll excuse one late payment.From the entry insomuch
- The high unemployment numbers are the government's excuse du jour for not doing anything about the environment.From the entry du jour
- I just want the unembroidered truth, in small words, with no excuses or explanations.From the entry unembroidered
- His excuse about his daughter being ill again rings true, to me.From the entry ring true
- His excuse about his car breaking down again rings false to me.From the entry ring false
- She trots out the same old excuses every time she's late.From the entry same old story
- Excuse me, where is the little boys' room? My son is about to burst a bladder.From the entry little boys' room
- Excuse me, sir: do you have the time? I think I'm late for work.From the entry have the time
- I accept your proposal, amendment, or excuse.From the entry accept
- Excuse me, have you got the time?From the entry time
- I'm not going to buy your stupid excuses anymore!From the entry buy
- I made up an excuse as to why I was out so late, but my wife wasn't having any of it.From the entry have
- She always makes the same old excuses.From the entry old
- Bob is a sorry excuse for a football player.From the entry sorry
- Excuse me, mate, have you got the time?From the entry mate
- Instead of apologising, he offered up excuse after excuse.From the entry up
- I knew I had to invent an excuse, and quickly.From the entry invent
- That was a feeble excuse for an example.From the entry feeble
- I do not care a sou for your excuses.From the entry sou
- Excuse me, I need to take a squirt.From the entry squirt
Meaning of excuse
- verb To forgive; to pardon; to overlook.
- verb To allow to leave, or release from any obligation.
- verb To provide an excuse for; to justify.
Questions about excuse in a sentence
- How do you use excuse in a sentence?
- Excuse is used as a verb and noun. For example: “I excused him his transgressions.”
- What is a short sentence with excuse?
- “a feeble excuse”
- What does excuse mean?
- Excuse means to forgive; to pardon; to overlook.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: excuse (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use excuse in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/excuse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.