Lenience

Lenience is the opposite of strictness. It means letting offenses that would otherwise result in punishment remain unpunished, or lightening the punishment. The corresponding adjective is lenient.

Lenience can also refer to a disposition to yield to the wishes of someone. So for example, if a child always gets whatever he or she wants from his or her parents, the parents may be called lenient.

Lenience is a characteristic of a person of authority who has the power to grant wishes or not, and/or to punish or not, such as a parent, teacher, judge, or monarch.

Whereas mercifulness means something similar with positive connotations, lenience can also be neutral or negative, depending on the context. When a parent tells a child that they have been "too lenient" with him or her in the past, it means that they intend to be stricter from now on.

Thesaurus

• forbearance
• mercifulness, mercy
• tolerance
• indulgence
• clemency

See also

• Spare the rod and spoil the child (proverb)

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