amnesty means amnesty International, a UK-based charity. It carries an Arena rating of 1659, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, amnesty ranks #680 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,120 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,761 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #3,104 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
amnesty is pronounced /ˈæm.nɪ.sti/.
Why “amnesty” is a great word
An official pardon, typically granted by a government, for a group of people accused of political offenses. From the Latin *amnestia*, borrowed from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία (*amnēstía*, "forgetfulness, oblivion"), from ἀ- (*a-*, "not") and μνήμη (*mnḗmē*, "remembrance"), first recorded in English 1570–80. Unlike "pardon," which forgives an individual's specific crime, or "clemency," which implies a reduction of penalty, amnesty is the legal enactment of collective forgetting, a blanket absolution that dissolves offenses. It is the shredding of draft cards returned to young men by a government that no longer wishes to remember its war, the unbuttoning of a collar worn too long in hiding, and the palpable, uneasy quiet that falls when a nation chooses to look forward—a fragile, political grace purchased by an agreed-upon silence.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French amnestie (Modern French amnistie), a borrowing from Latin amnestia, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία (amnēstía).
name
- Amnesty International, a UK-based charity.
noun
- Forgetfulness; cessation of remembrance of wrong; oblivion.
- An act of the sovereign power granting oblivion, or a general pardon, for a past offense, as to subjects concerned in an insurrection.
verb
- To grant a pardon (to a group).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.