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Pardon vs Probation - What's the difference?

pardon | probation |

As nouns the difference between pardon and probation

is that pardon is pardon while probation is a period of time when a person occupies a position only conditionally and may easily be removed for poor performance.

pardon

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Forgiveness for an offence.
  • * 1748 : Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
  • a step, that could not be taken with the least hope of ever obtaining pardon from or reconciliation with any of my friends;
  • (legal) An order that releases a convicted criminal without further punishment, prevents future punishment, or (in some jurisdictions) removes an offence from a person's criminal record, as if it had never been committed.
  • * 1974 : President Gerald Ford, Proclamation 4311
  • I... have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States ...

    Derived terms

    * I beg your pardon

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To forgive.
  • * 1599 : (William Shakespeare),
  • O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
  • * 1815 : (Jane Austen), (Emma)
  • I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be pardoned , in consideration of the motive.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned .}}
  • To refrain from exacting as a penalty.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
  • (legal) To grant an official pardon for a crime; unguilt.
  • * 1900', , ' (The House Behind the Cedars) , Chapter I,
  • The murderer, he recalled, had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence.

    Derived terms

    * pardonable * pardoner * pardon me * pardon my French * unpardonable

    Interjection

  • Pardon? , What did you say?, Can you say that again?

    probation

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A period of time when a person occupies a position only conditionally and may easily be removed for poor performance
  • You'll be on probation for first six months. After that, if you work out, they'll hire you permanently.
  • A type of sentence where convicted criminals are allowed to continue living in the community but will automatically be sent to jail if they violate certain conditions
  • He got two years probation for robbery.
  • (archaic) The act of testing; proof
  • * 1661 , , page 20,
  • And I shall proceed to consider the testimony of Experience, when I shall have first advertis'd You, that if Men were as perfectly rational as 'tis to be wish'd they were, this sensible way of Probation would be as needless as 'tis wont to be imperfect.
  • * , lines 148-156,
  • And then it started like a guilty thing / Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, / The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, / Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat / Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, / Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air / The extravagant and erring spirit hies / To his confine: and of the truth herein / This present object made probation .

    Derived terms

    * probationary * probation officer * academic probation