Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of lenity Twelve judges sided with Cargill and concluded that the definition of machine gun was ambiguous enough to invoke a legal principle known as the rule of lenity, which requires courts to interpret unclear criminal laws in a way that's most favorable to the defendant. Melissa Quinn, CBS News, 28 Feb. 2024 The majority’s treatment of the rule of lenity also strikes a slightly sour note. The Insider, Forbes, 15 Apr. 2021 If the rule of lenity applies here, then Butler should not be charged with a hate crime. Mark Joseph Stern, Slate Magazine, 25 Apr. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for lenity
Noun
  • That's the small mercy serious songs offer: not false hope, but a candle in the hallway, proof that someone else stayed up too.
    Philip Martin, Arkansas Online, 26 June 2025
  • Sales tax revenue, meanwhile, is at the mercy of uncertain macroeconomic conditions, with many U.S. economists predicting that the country might soon fall into a recession.
    Jonathan Horwitz, Oc Register, 26 June 2025
Noun
  • Brooklyn Federal Court Judge William Kuntz handed down a 12-year and three month sentence to gun dealer Raymond Minaya Tuesday, rejecting the 29-year-old defendant’s plea for leniency, but stopping short of the more than 15 years prosecutors had sought.
    John Annese, New York Daily News, 24 June 2025
  • While some investors are willing to lend him some leniency on timing and the exact details, many want concrete signs of progress.
    Bloomberg, Oc Register, 13 June 2025
Noun
  • Meanwhile, Trump has granted clemencies and commutations to people who owe more than $1.3 billion in restitution money, combined, to victims of white collar crime, according to the former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer, who tallied the money using court records.
    Sara Dorn, Forbes.com, 4 July 2025
  • In his first and second terms, Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least 68 people convicted of fraud crimes or of interfering with fraud investigations, according to a KFF Health News review of court and clemency records, DOJ press releases, and news reports.
    Brett Kelman, The Tennessean, 2 July 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Lenity.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lenity. Accessed 10 Jul. 2025.

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