extenuating

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: ex=ten=u=at=ing

CIDE DICTIONARY

extenuating, adj. 

 serving or tending to reduce the severity of guilt or blameworthiness; as, extenuating circumstances.  [WordNet 1.5]

THESAURUS

extenuating

altering, apologetic, assuasive, bounding, diminishing, excusatory, excusing, extenuative, extenuatory, justificatory, justifying, lenitive, lessening, limitative, limiting, mitigating, mitigative, mitigatory, modificatory, modifying, modulatory, palliative, qualificative, qualificatory, qualifying, refuting, rehabilitative, restricting, restrictive, softening, tempering, vindicative, vindicatory