mitigating circumstance

1. 1.

   (law) a circumstance that does not exonerate a person but which reduces the penalty associated with the offense

   Broadercircumstance

   law

Questions about mitigating circumstance

What does mitigating circumstance mean?

mitigating circumstance means "(law) a circumstance that does not exonerate a person but which reduces the penalty associated with the offense".

Is mitigating circumstance a common word?

mitigating circumstance is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.