His excuse for being late was that he had missed the train. 他迟到的理由是没有赶上火车。
Excuse me, but I must say you are completely wrong. 对不起,但是我必须说你完全错了。
excuse
[ noun ]
a defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise etc.
<noun.communication> he kept finding excuses to stay every day he had a new alibi for not getting a job his transparent self-justification was unacceptable
a note explaining an absence
<noun.communication> he had to get his mother to write an excuse for him
a poor example
<noun.cognition> it was an apology for a meal a poor excuse for an automobile [ verb ]
Excuse \Ex*cuse"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Excused}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Excusing}.] [OE. escusen, cusen, OF. escuser, excuser, F. excuser, fr. L. excusare; ex out + causa cause, causari to plead. See {Cause}.] 1. To free from accusation, or the imputation of fault or blame; to clear from guilt; to release from a charge; to justify by extenuating a fault; to exculpate; to absolve; to acquit.
A man's persuasion that a thing is duty, will not excuse him from guilt in practicing it, if really and indeed it be against Gog's law. --Abp. Sharp.
2. To pardon, as a fault; to forgive entirely, or to admit to be little censurable, and to overlook; as, we excuse irregular conduct, when extraordinary circumstances appear to justify it.
I must excuse what can not be amended. --Shak.
3. To regard with indulgence; to view leniently or to overlook; to pardon.
And in our own (excuse some courtly stains.) No whiter page than Addison remains. --Pope.
4. To free from an impending obligation or duty; hence, to disengage; to dispense with; to release by favor; also, to remit by favor; not to exact; as, to excuse a forfeiture.
I pray thee have me excused. --xiv. 19.
5. To relieve of an imputation by apology or defense; to make apology for as not seriously evil; to ask pardon or indulgence for.
Think ye that we excuse ourselves to you? --2 Cor. xii. 19.
Syn: To vindicate; exculpate; absolve; acquit.
Usage: - {To Pardon}, {Excuse}, {Forgive}. A superior pardons as an act of mercy or generosity; either a superior or an equal excuses. A crime, great fault, or a grave offence, as one against law or morals, may be pardoned; a small fault, such as a failure in social or conventional obligations, slight omissions or neglects may be excused. Forgive relates to offenses against one's self, and punishment foregone; as, to forgive injuries or one who has injured us; to pardon grave offenses, crimes, and criminals; to excuse an act of forgetfulness, an unintentional offense. Pardon is also a word of courtesy employed in the sense of excuse.
Excuse \Ex*cuse"\, n. [Cf. F. excuse. See {Excuse}, v. t.] 1. The act of excusing, apologizing, exculpating, pardoning, releasing, and the like; acquittal; release; absolution; justification; extenuation.
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it. --Shak.
2. That which is offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or irregular deportment; apology; as, an excuse for neglect of duty; excuses for delay of payment.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse. --Milton.
3. That which excuses; that which extenuates or justifies a fault. ``It hath the excuse of youth.'' --Shak.
If eyes were made for seeing. Then beauty is its own excuse for being. --Emerson.
Syn: See {Apology}.
'It can be middle management who unbeknownst to the board get the firm into difficulty,' says Sue Hankey of lawyers Cameron Markby & Hewitt. The excuse is sometimes ignorance.
The court ends the term with the liberals perhaps understandably feeling the pressure of minority status. Still, there can be no excuse for gamesmanship in constitutional law.
Once more the target date for final ratification has been postponed; by now it is clear that all target dates are largely fictitious; once more the government is using the Danes as an excuse for running away from the treaty.
With European elections looming, it is hardly surprising that the government used yesterday's first-quarter growth figures as an excuse to trumpet recovery.
Ronald Reagan, leaning on American-made semiconductors as his excuse, thereupon began to draw a high protectionist curtain along his country's western coastline.
But Mr. Sulya also said the Campeau story was merely the excuse some already nervous investors needed.
Union leaders, on the other hand, believe that Eastern officials are turning their backs on the unions' hard-fought labor contracts to provoke a strike, a slowdown or some other lawful excuse to fire highly paid employees.
However, other analysts said program trading is merely a convenient excuse for investors who want to stay clear of the stock market.
Dissenters in South Korea say the government is using it as an excuse to clamp down on them.
Rostenkowski acknowledged that any bill will include a popular provision to excuse farmers and state and local governments from a new law requiring them to pay taxes on their purchases of diesel fuel and then apply to the treasury for a rebate.
Moreover, "Talk about a stock transfer tax provided some excuse to sell" following five sessions of rising stock prices, said James Solloway, chief economist at Argus Research.
I knew sons of government officials and members of Congress who were first in line to obtain whatever excuse was necessary to avoid military service.
Some analysts said the market's rise today reflected a more fundamental change in sentiment toward rising prices, and the OPEC development was merely an excuse to buy.
He has an excuse: In Yugoslavia, raising doubts about the genius of worker control can land you in jail.
Ronald Sapiro, head trader for Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., said the markets used their disappointment in the report as an excuse to dump dollars.
"There's no excuse for a public water system to be distributing water that exceeds the bacteriological standards," said Dean, since bacteria are easily killed by cheap, well-understood chlorination.
In this sense, subsidiarity could prove to be the fatal catch-all excuse for the maintenance of national trade protection'.
Abbey National, the most highly geared to an upturn in the housing market, lifted 5 to 331p with 11m shares traded. The principal pharmaceutical stocks were weak as US interest died away and a few stories provided an excuse to sell.
"La raison d'etat" is a famous phrase in France, used by governments as an excuse to remain silent.
"The earthquake is a very good excuse for everything," said John Marks, president of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors' Bureau. "But there are many other factors that are causing the momentary bump" in tourism.
Radio Times is primarily an excuse to revive some of that Light Programme music, with biggish bands, jaunty and sentimental songs, corny and sometimes risque jokes.
In today's zigzagging over-the-counter stock market, he adds, investors who think a stock is getting pricey shouldn't wait for news or another excuse to sell.
He used the war as an excuse to turn his nation into an armed camp.
Afraid to offend and confuse with tough, honest criticism, even department heavyweights will pass the most banal and badly conceived paper, and accept the leanest excuse for absence from class, when proffered by someone of a darker hue.
Mickey Luth, grains analyst with Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., said the talk of Soviet buying interest was a good excuse for the soybean complex to rally, whether the speculation pans out or not.
Britain and France, but especially Britain, have used the exposure of their troops, in a supposedly neutral humanitarian role, as an excuse for refusing to take sides.
That was just an excuse," Pitmann said.
Most people probably would excuse Elsie for dreaming of greener pastures as she tours south Georgia's peanut and pecan country.
The party's only excuse for this behavior has been a statement that it feared Mr. Pfeiffer might be "an agent provocateur."
Many U.S. officials believe South Korea has used alleged over-consumption as an excuse to discriminate against imports.