extravagantly demonstrative; "insincere and effusive demonstrations of sentimental friendship"; "a large gushing female"; "write unrestrained and gushy poetry"
a note explaining an absence; "he had to get his mother to write an excuse for him"
a defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise etc.; "he kept finding excuses to stay"; "every day he had a new alibi for not getting a job"; "his transparent self-justification was unacceptable"
excuse, overlook, or make allowances for; be lenient with; "excuse someone's behavior"; "She condoned her husband's occasional infidelities"
serve as a reason or cause or justification of; "Your need to sleep late does not excuse your late arrival at work"; "Her recent divorce may explain her reluctance to date again"
grant exemption or release to; "Please excuse me from this class"
ask for permission to be released from an engagement
accept an excuse for; "Please excuse my dirty hands"
unrestrained by convention or morality; "Congreve draws a debauched aristocratic society"; "deplorably dissipated and degraded"; "riotous living"; "fast women"
people who are free; "the home of the free and the brave"
not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem"
unconstrained or not chemically bound in a molecule or not fixed and capable of relatively unrestricted motion; "free expansion"; "free oxygen"; "a free electron"
able to act at will; not hampered; not under compulsion or restraint; "free enterprise"; "a free port"; "a free country"; "I have an hour free"; "free will"; "free of racism"; "feel free to stay as long as you wish"; "a free choice"
not held in servitude; "after the Civil War he was a free man"
not occupied or in use; "a free locker"; "a free lane"
free or remove obstruction from; "free a path across the cluttered floor"
grant freedom to; free from confinement
free from obligations or duties
make (information) available publication; "release the list with the names of the prisoners"