alibi
Americannoun
-
alibis
plural
-
Law. the defense by an accused person of having been elsewhere at the time an alleged offense was committed.
-
an excuse, especially to avoid blame.
- Synonyms:
- justification, reason, explanation
-
a person used as one's excuse.
My sick grandmother was my alibi for missing school.
verb (used without object)
-
alibis,
present (3rd person singular)
-
alibied,
past participle, past
-
alibiing
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
alibis,
present (3rd person singular)
-
alibied,
past participle, past
-
alibiing
present participle
noun
-
law
-
a defence by an accused person that he was elsewhere at the time the crime in question was committed
-
the evidence given to prove this
-
-
informal an excuse
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
alibisimple
-
alibissimple
-
have alibiedperfect
-
has alibiedperfect
-
am alibiingprogressive
-
are alibiingprogressive
-
is alibiingprogressive
-
have been alibiingperfect progressive
-
has been alibiingperfect progressive
Past
-
alibiedsimple
-
had alibiedperfect
-
was alibiingprogressive
-
were alibiingprogressive
-
had been alibiingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of alibi
First recorded in 1610–20; from Latin alibī (adverb): “in another place, elsewhere”
Explanation
Your alibi is evidence that proves your innocence. If you were making cookies with your mom when someone raided your sister's piggy bank, your mom is your alibi, since she knows you were with her when the crime was committed. The noun alibi is the same word as its Latin root, alibi, which means "excuse." When you provide an alibi, you are giving proof — a certified excuse — that you could not have committed a crime. Alibi is easy to confuse with alias, which means "an assumed, or false, name."
Vocabulary lists containing alibi
The Westing Game
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Twelve Angry Men
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"The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Sept. 4 tells us whether that is analysis or alibi.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
During trial, Miles presented an alibi defense that included testimony from his parents, 12-year-old son, a neighbor in Las Vegas and the manager of his Las Vegas apartment, according to the district attorney’s office.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
Police had initially believed McCullagh's alibi because YouTube, the platform on which it had been broadcast, confirmed it had played out as a live broadcast.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
But he got his first name wrong, and the person he actually accused turned out to have a firm alibi.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
White looked into Hale’s alibi and was told that Grammer had gone with him.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
While this is a true crime story with shaky alibis and prosecutorial misconduct, it is less a whodunit and more a nuanced exploration of reasonable doubt and how our system works or doesn’t.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Their mother, Easther McCook, 51, was sentenced to two years, suspended for three years, for perverting the course of justice by providing false alibis for her sons.
From BBC ● May 29, 2026
Other potential suspects had alibis of their own.
From Slate ● Apr. 6, 2026
Both Hall’s wife, scion of a prominent and wealthy New Jersey family, and Mills’s working-class husband appeared to have solid alibis.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2022
The police reported on Salim’s friends’ alibis the day he disappeared.
From "The London Eye Mystery" by Siobhan Dowd
Williams excoriated feminist leaders who excused Bill and alibied for him.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2017
The subsequent aggression of Bolivia against Paraguay was sonorously alibied, last week, by Bolivian delegate Diez de Medina, addressing the Conference in Washington.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Berlin was bombed, Germans alibied that the R.A.F.:
From Time Magazine Archive
James E. Barrett alibied: "There was a hole in the wall and I just fell through."
From Time Magazine Archive
"That was issued before my time," he alibied.
From The Cartels Jungle by Irving E. Cox
By now Detroit was through alibiing for '58.
From Time Magazine Archive
The combination of televised second-guessing, N.F.L. stonewalling and coaches complaining, perhaps alibiing, has brought the striped-shirt arbiters a notoriety they would just as soon had passed them by.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
