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The act of exculpating from alleged fault or crime; that which exculpates; excuse. These robbers, however, were men who might have made out a strong case in exculpation of themselves. Southey.

Trial, as a test or experiment. [Obs.] She caused him to make experience Upon wild beasts. Spenser.

An experimenter. [Obs.] Sir. K. Gigby.

isfaction for; to atone for; to make amends for; to make expiation for; as, to expiate a crime, a guilt, or sin. To expiate his treason, hath naught left. Milton. The Treasurer obliged himself to expiate the injury. Clarendon.

The act of making satisfaction or atonement for any crime or fault; the extinguishing of guilt by suffering or penalty. His liberality seemed to have something in it of self-abasement and expiation. W. Irving.

anything objectionable; to render accessible to anything which may affect, especially detrimentally; to make liable; as, to expose one's self to the heat of the sun, or to cold, insult, danger, or ridicule; to expose an army to destruction or defeat. Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel. Shak.

hat effect; but in its true application, as employed in American law, it relates only to crimes, and signifies a law which retroacts, by way of criminal punishment, upon that which was not a crime before its passage, or which raises the grade of an offense, or renders an act punishable in a more severe manner that it w…

pen or bare; openness to danger; accessibility to anything that may affect, especially detrimentally; as, exposure to observation, to cold to inconvenience. When we have our naked frailties hid, That suffer in exposure. Shak.

lessen; to palliate; to lessen or weaken the force of; to diminish the conception of, as crime, guilt, faults, ills, accusations, etc.; -- opposed to aggravate. But fortune there extenuates the crime. Dryden. Let us extenuate, conceal, adorn the unpleasing reality. I. Taylor.

thin, slender, or lean, or of palliating; diminishing, or lessening; palliation, as of a crime; mitigation, as of punishment. To listen . . . to every extenuation of what is evil. I. Taylor.

ut; quenched; as, a fire, a light, or a lamp, is extinct; an extinct volcano. Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct. Milton.

low. [Obs.] Dryden. If I can fasten but one cup upon him. Shak. To fasten a charge, or a crime, upon, to make his guilt certain, or so probable as to be generally believed. -- To fasten one's eyes upon, to look upon steadily without cessation. Acts iii. 4.

ect or dereliction from duty; a deviation from propriety; an offense less serious than a crime.

A companion; a comrade; an associate; a partner; a sharer. The fellows of his crime. Milton. We are fellows still, Serving alike in sorrow. Shak. That enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude. Gibbon.

A person guilty or capable of heinous crime.

ious; villainous; traitorous; perfidious; in a legal sense, done with intent to commit a crime; as, felonious homicide. O thievish Night, Why should'st thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars Milton. -- Fe*lo"ni`ous*ly, adv. -- Fe*lo"ni`ous*ness, n.

A heinous crime; especially, a crime punishable by death or imprisonment.

r action, operation, or achievement; province; room. Afforded a clear field for moral experiments. Macaulay.

To discover by study or experiment direct to an object or end; as, water is found to be a compound substance.

racefully or shamefully criminal; grossly wicked; scandalous; shameful; -- said of acts, crimes, etc. Debauched principles and flagitious practices. I. Taylor.