atone

IPA/əˈtəʊn/
KK[ətˈon]IPA/əˈtəʊn/

atone — verb

  • atonepresent simple I / you / we / they
  • atoneshe / she / it
  • atonedpast simple
  • atoning-ing form

1. to do something good or helpful because you feel sorry for the harm or trouble y

1.verbintransitiveC1
Definition

to do something good or helpful because you feel sorry for the harm or trouble you caused in the past

Example

Isabella tried to atone for her harsh words by baking her grandmother's favourite cake.

atone for her harsh words

The factory donated money to local schools to atone for the pollution it had released.

atone for the pollution

Common collocations
  • atone for sins
  • atone for mistakes
  • atone for past wrongs
  • atone by doing
  • atone through action
Synonyms
  • make up for

    more common in everyday speech; less formal than atone

  • redeem

    stronger moral or religious tone; can imply being saved from sin

  • expiate

    very formal and literary; almost exclusively used for serious moral wrongs

Antonyms
  • offend

    to cause the harm that atonement seeks to repair

  • wrong

    to treat someone badly, the opposite of making amends

Grammar Patterns

atone + for + noun phrase

Usage Note

Frequently used with for followed by the specific wrong or harm being made up for. The subject is either a person or an institution (company, government, organisation).

Common Mistakes

He atoned the mistake.
He atoned for the mistake.
atone is always intransitive and requires 'for' before the thing being made up for.
She atoned with her mother.
She atoned for hurting her mother.
atone requires stating what wrong is being amended, not just who the person is.
Idioms

at one

idiom

in a state of harmony or full agreement with someone; a literary or archaic expression from which the verb atone historically developed.

After a long argument, the two sisters were finally at one with each other again.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

Atone carries a strong sense of moral repair — you are not just fixing a problem but showing genuine regret for a wrong that hurt someone. Make up for is the everyday equivalent and works for small and large situations alike ('I made up for being late by bringing coffee'). Redeem has a deeper, often religious colour: you redeem yourself after a failure that damaged your character or reputation. Compensate is more transactional and neutral — it can mean paying money or providing something to offset a loss, with no feeling of guilt required. For example, a company might compensate a customer for a damaged product without atoning for the mistake, but when the same company plants a forest after causing pollution, it is trying to atone.

atone ↗make up for ↗redeem ↗compensate ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • atone by doing something
  • atone through action

Prepositions

Etymology

Old EnglishMiddle EnglishEnglish

The verb 'atone' began in the 1500s as a shortening of the phrase 'at one', meaning to be in harmony or agreement. Over time, it shifted in meaning: instead of describing two people who were already united, it came to describe the effort of making things right after a conflict or wrongdoing. The older sense of 'at one' (in harmony) survives today only in very formal or literary English.