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What is "absolve"

Crossword clues for absolve

absolve
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
absolve
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
responsibility
▪ Everyone but his father; whose condition, whose very nature absolved him of responsibility.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But now all of us have been absolved of ever considering it again.
▪ But there may be cases where the landlord absolves his tenant from performance in ways which release the other covenantors.
▪ For all that, the teacher can hardly be absolved from the attempt to clarify his own mind.
▪ For Jason is proving, albeit from his grave, that death does not absolve bias.
▪ He had provided a father-confessor figure to absolve the youngster's sins and absorb his phobias.
▪ Oppenheimer seems to have absolved himself for lack of special expertise in ethics.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Absolve

Absolve \Ab*solve"\ (#; 277), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Absolved; p. pr. & vb. n. Absolving.] [L. absolvere to set free, to absolve; ab + solvere to loose. See Assoil, Solve.]

  1. To set free, or release, as from some obligation, debt, or responsibility, or from the consequences of guilt or such ties as it would be sin or guilt to violate; to pronounce free; as, to absolve a subject from his allegiance; to absolve an offender, which amounts to an acquittal and remission of his punishment.

    Halifax was absolved by a majority of fourteen.
    --Macaulay.

  2. To free from a penalty; to pardon; to remit (a sin); -- said of the sin or guilt.

    In his name I absolve your perjury.
    --Gibbon.

  3. To finish; to accomplish. [Obs.]

    The work begun, how soon absolved.
    --Milton.

  4. To resolve or explain. [Obs.] ``We shall not absolve the doubt.''
    --Sir T. Browne.

    Syn: To Absolve, Exonerate, Acquit.

    Usage: We speak of a man as absolved from something that binds his conscience, or involves the charge of wrongdoing; as, to absolve from allegiance or from the obligation of an oath, or a promise. We speak of a person as exonerated, when he is released from some burden which had rested upon him; as, to exonerate from suspicion, to exonerate from blame or odium. It implies a purely moral acquittal. We speak of a person as acquitted, when a decision has been made in his favor with reference to a specific charge, either by a jury or by disinterested persons; as, he was acquitted of all participation in the crime.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
absolve

early 15c., from Latin absolvere "set free, loosen, acquit," from ab- "from" (see ab-) + solvere "loosen" (see solve). Related: Absolved; absolving.

Wiktionary
absolve

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To set free, release or discharge (from obligations, debts, responsibility etc.). (First attested around 1350 to 1470.)(R:SOED5: page=9) 2 (context transitive obsolete English) To resolve; to explain; to solve. (Attested from the late 15th century until the mid 17th century.) 3 (context transitive English) To pronounce free from or give absolution for a penalty, blame, or guilt. (First attested in the mid 16th century.) 4 (context transitive legal English) To pronounce not guilty; to grant a pardon for. (First attested in the mid 16th century.) 5 (context transitive theology English) To grant a remission of sin; to give absolution to. (First attested in the mid 16th century.) 6 (context transitive theology English) To remit a sin; to give absolution for a sin. (First attested in the late 16th century.) 7 (context transitive obsolete English) To finish; to accomplish. (Attested from the late 16th century until the early 19th century.) 8 (context transitive English) To pass a course or test; to gain credit for a class; to qualify academically.

WordNet
absolve

  1. v. grant remission of a sin to; "The priest absolved him and told him to say ten Hail Mary's"

  2. let off the hook; "I absolve you from this responsibility" [syn: justify, free] [ant: blame]

Usage examples of "absolve".

We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in our presence you abjure, curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church in the manner and form we will prescribe to you.

And since according to those same canonical institutions all such are to be condemned as heretics, but you holding to wiser counsel and returning to the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church have abjured, as we have said, all vile heresy, therefore we absolve you from the sentence of excommunication by which you were deservedly bound as one hateful to the Church of God.

Then he imposed a penance of prayer and fasting, and then absolved them.

But according to John 8 Christ absolved the adulterous woman without Penance.

It seemed to Smith, upon reading the individual reports, that many of them would have been absolved before their cases got beyond the deputy level, so flimsy were the accusations made against them.

Aurelia in Pistoja, to fall with tears at her feet, to be pardoned and absolved, to rise to the life of honour and respect once more.

I read, and turning my face to the Heavens, thanked God that I was absolved by the dear subject of my crimes.

The Army absolved him of all wrongdoing and offered to reinstate him if he wished.

He watched it, then dropped another daisy into the water, and after that another, and sat watching them with bright, absolved eyes, crouching near on the bank.

She seemed to have passed into a kind of dream world, absolved from the conditions of actuality.

Unless I set my will, unless I absolve myself from the rhythm of life, fix myself and remain static, cut off from living, absolved within my own will.

But to live mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as an entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious.

Now it is evident that in Penance something is done so that something holy is signified both on the part of the penitent sinner, and on the part of the priest absolving, because the penitent sinner, by deed and word, shows his heart to have renounced sin, and in like manner the priest, by his deed and word with regard to the penitent, signifies the work of God Who forgives his sins.

Eucharist the priest perfects the sacrament by merely pronouncing the words over the matter, so the mere words which the priest while absolving pronounces over the penitent perfect the sacrament of absolution.

Not at all unhandsome, yet, now that she knew, she could see his indebtedness, the sure burden upon him, and the truth that, for him, for every child he might sire, there would be no absolving the stigma.