(legal) An order that releases a convictedcriminal 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.
(transitive) To refrain from exacting as a penalty.
(transitive, legal) To grant an official pardon for a crime; unguilt.
Esimerkit
a step, that could not be taken with the least hope of ever obtaining pardon from or reconciliation with any of my friends;
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 ...
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be pardoned, in consideration of the motive.
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.
I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
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.
Pardon?, What did you say?, Can you say that again?