(law) An order that releases a convictedcriminal without further punishment, prevents future punishment, or (in some jurisdictions) removes an offence from a person's criminal record, as if it had never been committed.
“It's just the kind of logic employed by mediaeval pardoners flogging pigs' bones as holy relics.”
“Chaucer's habit of poking fun at pardoners and summoners is not so much an example of impiety as a way of demonstrating how much virtue he has to spare.”