excuse

«excuse» in Mova's school dictionary: a reason you give to explain why you did something wrong… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an excuse, excuses — said ex-KYOOS); verb (excuse, excuses, excused, excusing — said ex-KYOOZ)

meaning for a pupil

1) An excuse is a reason you give to explain why you did something wrong or did not do something, often not the real reason. tree →

2) To excuse someone means to forgive them for something small. tree →

3) To excuse someone from something means to let them not do it. tree →

4) «Excuse me» is a polite phrase to get attention, to ask someone to move, or to say sorry for a small thing. tree →

sense in the lessons

In manners, «Excuse me» is used to get someone's attention politely, to pass someone, after a burp, or to leave the table («May I be excused?»). In school, a note from a parent can excuse you from PE. In everyday life and truth, making excuses means blaming other things instead of saying sorry; «The dog ate my homework» is a famous excuse. Good habit: give a reason, then take responsibility.

examples

• Excuse me, could you tell me the time? tree →
• Excuse me, can I get past? tree →
• That's not a good excuse for being late. tree →
• He always has an excuse for not doing his homework. tree →
• Please excuse the mess. tree →
• She was excused from PE because of her sore foot. tree →
• May I be excused from the table? tree →
• «The dog ate it» is the oldest excuse ever. tree →
• Perhaps there was some excuse for him. tree →

note

Noun and verb sound different: the noun ends with an «s» sound (an excuse), the verb with a «z» sound (to excuse). Countable noun: an excuse, excuses. «Excuse me» is for before (getting attention); «sorry» is for after (an accident) in British English; Americans also say «excuse me» after.

In the corpora

• "Pardon my French" means "excuse my swearing"; the rude word was English, not French.
• "Excuse my language" is a polite way of saying "sorry for swearing".
• A real apology says what you did wrong and does not add an excuse.
• A real apology owns up to what you did without an excuse.
• You say "Excuse me" and wait for people to move when you need to get past them.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «excuse» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.