[ad. L. condōnātiōn-em, n. of action f. condōnāre to CONDONE. The English use was taken from the Latin casuists of the 16–17th c.: cf. the later verb CONDONE.]
The pardoning or remission of an offense or fault; the voluntary overlooking of an offense, and treatment of the offender as if it had not been committed; now (under influence of the legal use in b.) most frequently used of action towards the offender which tacitly implies that his offense is passed over.
1625. Bp. Mountagu, App. Cæsar, vi. 169. The blot and body of sinne … remaining in the soule of man, in like manner as it did before condonation.
c. 1630. Jackson, Creed, IV. II. vii. Wks. III. 342. To hold that … God’s favour or condonation (to use their Latin word with addition of one English letter) is … requisite for our acceptance or approbation with Him.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 99. There ought to be little condonation of the foibles, and none at all of the moral obliquities, of the dead.
1885. E. Garrett, At Any Cost, xvii. 296. Mrs. Brander’s easy condonation of the sins of one who was ‘so pleasant in society.’
b. Law. The action of a husband or wife in the forgiving, or acting so as to imply forgiveness, of matrimonial infidelity.
1788–91. Sir W. Scott (Ld. Stowell), in Consistory Rep., I. 130. Condonation is a conditional forgiveness which does not take away the right of complaint in case of a continuation of adultery. Ibid. (1799), in Haggard, Rep., I. 793. Condonation is forgiveness legally releasing the injury: it may be express, or implied … It would be hard if condonation by implication was held a strict bar against the wife.
1858. Sir C. Cresswell, in Times, 15 Dec., 8/6. Condonation meant a blotting-out of the offence imputed, so as to restore the offending party to the position which she occupied before the offence was committed. The English word ‘forgiveness’ as commonly used, did not fully express the meaning of ‘condonation.’
1859. Phillimore, in Swabey, Rep., I. 348. The word and doctrine of condonation was introduced into the law of England from the Canon Law. The expression ‘Condonatio’ does not even occur in the Civil Law.
¶ In classical Lat. sense: only in Dicts.
1623. Cockeram, II. A giuing, condonation.
