single-word-requestsverbs
It's on the tip of my tongue.
I think there's a word (possibly ending in -ate) which means, loosely, "to make excuses".
Not in the sense found here of "decline", but meaning to try and justify something. It doesn't necessarily have to have the connotation that these excuses are bad ones, or that the action was in fact unjustified, but it could do.
For example, "I accused him of not delivering, but rather than apologise he X"
Recursive is the correct answer, in my opinion.
I have considered recursive, but does that necessarily imply self-referentiality? I don't think it would imply an infinite process either.
By definition, recursion is self-referential, isn't it?
The number one definition you linked on wiktionary:
- drawing upon itself, referring back.
Recursion can be infinite:
If you wanted to be more specific, you could say that The Song That Never Ends is an infinitely recursive children's song.
- Conscious perception with full awareness.
- The process of understanding by which newly observed qualities of an object are related to past experience.
Moreover from "Dictionary of Philosophy" by Dagobert D. Runes:
In psychology,
apperception is "the process by which new experience is assimilated to and transformed by the residuum of past experience of an individual to form a new whole."
In short, it is to perceive new experience in relation to past experience.
In epistomology,
"the introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states."
Best Answer
The following words could be used in certain situations:
mitigate, in the sense of attempting to reduce the perceived consequences of an action. I don't think this is a good answer, and it needs some additional words around it, but at least it ends in "ate".
temporize, where a partial answer is given with the objective of gaining time, e.g. ...instead of apologizing or explaining, he temporized. "We'll look up the background in our files. Then we should talk again..."