a thousand pardons
1
7.9
- idiom
- Formal
:
mil perdones
- A thousand pardons, Your Majesty.
Examples
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A thousand pardons, Master.
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Signorina, a mistake, a thousand pardons.
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But a thousand pardons, my dear.
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A thousand pardons, ladies and gentlemen.
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A thousand pardons, my lord.
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A thousand pardons, Your Royal Highness.
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A thousand pardons, kind merchant.
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HARLEY: A thousand pardons, Your Majesty, but word from the front.
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A thousand pardons, monsieur.
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Oh, a thousand pardons, my dear man.
Synonyms
159
1.0
A polite way to get someone's attention or say sorry for a small interruption
How Apologetic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally transparent: 'thousand' functions as a hyperbolic quantifier ('many') and 'pardon(s)' denotes forgiveness/apology, so the literal meaning 'many apologies' clearly maps onto a very polite apology. Although formulaic and somewhat formal, the sense is directly derivable from the constituents and would be comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
A thousand pardons comes from old polite speech where someone offered many pardons, that is, asked for 'forgiveness', to show they were very sorry. That's why today it is used as a very polite way to say 'sorry'.