excuse noun

1 reason given

ADJ. perfect, wonderful | good, legitimate, valid | convincing, plausible, reasonable | feeble, flimsy, lame, pathetic, poor | convenient, easy The children provided a convenient excuse for missing the party. | standard, usual | every She seized on every excuse to avoid doing the work. | the slightest He became moody and unreasonable, flailing out at Katherine at the slightest excuse.

VERB + EXCUSE have He had no excuse for being so late. | give, make, offer She made some feeble excuse about the car having broken down. You don't have to make excuses for her (= try to think of reasons for her behaviour). It's late. I'm afraid I'll have to make my excuses (= say I'm sorry, give my reasons and leave). | give sb, offer sb, provide (sb with) Delivering the stuff for Rodney gave me an excuse to take the car. Her mother's illness provided her with an excuse to stay at home. | need | look for | find, invent, make up, seize on, think up She had to find a valid excuse for leaving the room. He made up a rather lame excuse for the work being late. | use sth as The political crisis is being used as an excuse to dock people's pay. | run out of He's run out of excuses for not tidying his room. | accept, believe | reject

PREP. ~ about He invented a pathetic excuse about losing his watch. | ~ for It's just an excuse for a party.

PHRASES there is no excuse for … There's no excuse for such behaviour.

2 bad example of sth

ADJ. pathetic, poor

PREP. ~ for Why get involved with that pathetic excuse for a human being?

You can also check other dicts: excuse (English, 中文解释 ), wordnet sense, Collins Definition

  • IELTS Speaking Topics (part 1,2,3)
  • IELTS Essay Writing Topics
  • IELTS Writing Ideas
  • Free Collocation Download