To officially state that someone is not guilty of a crime or wrong they were accused of. It can also mean to free someone from a duty or responsibility.
From Latin *exonerare* meaning ‘to unload, relieve’, from *ex-* (‘out, off’) and *onus* (‘burden’). Originally, it was about taking a load off a person or thing, and later became about lifting the ‘burden’ of blame.
The word literally imagines guilt as a physical weight being lifted off your shoulders. Modern DNA testing has exonerated many people, showing how a single piece of evidence can suddenly ‘unload’ years of shame and suspicion.
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