It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 22nd.
Today's word is Extenuate, spelled E-X-T-E-N-U-A-T-E.
Extenuate is a verb.
It's a formal word that is most often used to mean to lessen the strength or effect of something,
such as a risk.
In legal use,
to extenuate a crime or offense is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the LA Times by Charles McNulty.
Oedipus, paragon of problem solvers,
discovers by the end of the play the limits of his own keen intellect.
In trying to outrun his fate,
he learns that he is part of a design that is larger than his understanding.
But it is as a victim of fate that he finds the freedom to assume a courageous responsibility for deeds committed in ignorance.
Nothing can extenuate the horror of acts he spent his adult life trying to avoid.
Extenuate is most familiar in the phrase extenuating circumstances,
which refers to situations or facts that provide a partial justification or excuse for something.
The word extenuate can, however, also be used all on its own.
Its most typical use is with the meaning to lessen the strength or effect of something such as a risk.
But it also has legal use closely related to the meaning of extenuating circumstances.
To extenuate a crime or offense is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses.