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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

apologize.

To make an apology or excuse; to acknowledge some fault or offense, with expression of regret for it, by way of amends

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/əˈpɒləˌd͡ʒaɪz/Received-Pronunciation/əˈpɔləˌd͡ʒɑjz/British, Southern, Standard/əˈpɑləˌd͡ʒaɪz/General-American/əˈpɔləˌd͡ʒɑez/Australia
  1. To make an apology or excuse; to acknowledge some fault or offense, with expression of regret for it, by way of amends

    British · English · Oxford · US · intransitive · often
    My correspondent apologized for not answering my letter.
  2. To express regret that a certain event has occurred.

    British · English · Oxford · US · intransitive
  3. To make an apologia or defense; to act as apologist.

    British · English · Oxford · US · dated · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From apology + -ize, from ἀπολογία (apología, “a speech in defense”), from ἀπολογέομαι (apologéomai, “to speak in one’s defense”), from ἀπόλογος (apólogos, “an account, story”), compound of ἀπο- (apo-, “from, off”) and λόγος (lógos, “speech”); compare also ἀπολογίζομαι (apologízomai, “to render an account”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.