Extenuate

1. a. Thin; slender.
2. v. t. To make thin or slender; to draw out so as to lessen the thickness.
3. v. t. To lessen; to palliate; to lessen or weaken the force of; to diminish the conception of, as crime, guilt, faults, ills, accusations, etc.; — opposed to aggravate.
4. v. t. To lower or degrade; to detract from.
5. v. i. To become thinner; to make excuses; to advance palliating considerations.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.