These words all mean to make seem less wrong, evil, blameworthy, etc. Extenuate suggests the effort to lessen the blame incurred by an offence, usually by offering partial excuses. It often appears in the phrase extenuating circumstances. On the other hand, palliate , which formally implied concealment, as of the incriminating facts or the gravity of their consequences, is now more frequently used in the sense of representing an evil as less important than it appears: to extenuate past neglect by present concern; to palliate the errors in a book.

• Starvation may serve to extenuate an instance of theft; A doting parent may seek to palliate the excesses of an errant son.

Gloss over stresses the disguising or misrepresentation of incriminating facts: to gloss over a mediocre academic record. To whitewash is to represent by completely false information or a dishonest judgement: The accused man went free, whitewashed by a packed board of investigation.