clemency

Noun

1. The gentle or kind exercise of power; leniency, mercy; compassion in judging or punishing.
   • For vs, and for our Tragedie, / Heere stooping to your Clemencie: / We begge your hearing Patientlie. - c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William...
   • Notwithstanding, that I be not farther tedious vnto thee, I pray thee, that thou wouldest heare vs of thy clemencie a few words. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC,...
   • A death sentence for Kasab, seen to represent Pakistan, will be widely supported in a frenzy of righteous retribution. Presidential clemency is politically improbable. - 2010 May 4, Priyamvada Gopal, “Executing Mumbai...
2. A pardon, commutation, or similar reduction, removal, or postponement of legal penalties by an executive officer of a state.
   • Judicial intervention might, for example, be warranted in the face of a scheme whereby a state official flipped a coin to determine whether to grant clemency, or in a case where the State arbitrarily denied a prisoner...
3. Mildness of weather.
   • Now of all theſe Things there is ſuch a conſtant Continuance, by reaſon of the Clemency of the Climate, that ſcarce the leaſt Famine, which frequenteth other Countries, hath been felt in England theſe 400 Years. - 1748,...
   • The variegated verdure of the fields and woods, the ſucceſſion of grateful odours, the voice of pleaſure pouring out its notes on every ſide, with the gladneſs apparently conceived by every animal, from the growth of...
   • It rained still, and blew; but with more clemency, I thought, than it had poured and raged all day. - 1853 January, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “The Long Vacation”, in Villette. […], volume I, London:...