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Excuse vs Involve - What's the difference?

excuse | involve |

As verbs the difference between excuse and involve

is that excuse is while involve is to roll or fold up; to wind round; to entwine.

excuse

English

Verb

(excus)
  • To forgive; to pardon.
  • I excused him his transgressions.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I must excuse what cannot be amended.
  • * Archbishop Sharp
  • A man's persuasion that a thing is duty, will not excuse him from guilt in practising it, if really and indeed it be against God's law.
  • To allow to leave.
  • May I be excused from the table?
    I excused myself from the proceedings to think over what I'd heard.
  • To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement.
  • You know he shouldn't have done it, so don't try to excuse his behavior!
  • To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
  • * Bible, 2. Corinthians xii. 19
  • Think ye that we excuse ourselves to you?

    Synonyms

    * forgive, let off the hook, let pass, pardon, unguilt

    Derived terms

    * excuse me * excuse my French

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment.
  • Tell me why you were late – and I don't want to hear any excuses !
  • (legal) A defense to a criminal or civil charge wherein the accused party admits to doing acts for which legal consequences would normally be appropriate, but asserts that special circumstances relieve that party of culpability for having done those acts.
  • An example.(attention)
  • That thing is a poor excuse for a gingerbread man. Hasn't anyone taught you how to bake?
    He's a sorry excuse of a doctor.

    Usage notes

    * We often say to make an excuse.

    Synonyms

    * (explanation designed to avoid or alleviate guilt or negative judgment ): pretext

    involve

    English

    Alternative forms

    * envolve

    Verb

    (involv)
  • To roll or fold up; to wind round; to entwine.
  • * (John Milton)
  • Some of serpent kind involved / Their snaky folds.
  • To envelop completely; to surround; to cover; to hide; to involve in darkness or obscurity.
  • * (John Milton)
  • And leave a singèd bottom all involved / With stench and smoke.
  • To complicate or make intricate, as in grammatical structure.
  • * (John Locke)
  • Involved discourses.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=17 citation , passage=The face which emerged was not reassuring. […]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.}}
  • To connect with something as a natural or logical consequence or effect; to include necessarily; to imply.
  • * (John Milton)
  • He knows / His end with mine involved .
  • * Tillotson
  • The contrary necessarily involves a contradiction.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
  • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • To take in; to gather in; to mingle confusedly; to blend or merge.
  • * (Alexander Pope)
  • The gathering number, as it moves along, / Involves a vast involuntary throng.
  • * (John Milton)
  • Earth with hell / To mingle and involve .
  • To envelop, enfold, entangle, or embarrass.
  • To engage thoroughly; to occupy, employ, or absorb.
  • * Sir (Walter Scott)
  • Involved in a deep study.
  • (mathematics) To raise to any assigned power; to multiply, as a quantity, into itself a given number of times.
  • Synonyms

    * to imply * include * implicate * complicate * entangle * embarrass * overwhelm

    See also

    * involver * voluble * involute

    References

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