Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I did it. But, your account of what happened is missing a major part. I was wearing my slippers outside in the rain. A huge gust of wind blew open my bathrobe and spun me around like a wind turbine. I was dizzy. I fell down and was crawling home toward Elm Street when my legally purchased and registered .45 auto handgun discharged and blew a hole in the corner mailbox, damaging US government property. When I regained my composure and realized what I had done I was ashamed. I started crying and the gun went off five more times—every time I sobbed my body heaved making me pull the trigger. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid the mail in the mailbox would be damaged or destroyed due to the hole my bullets had blown in it by accident. So, I retrieved the mail through the hole, stuffed the contents of the mailbox into my bathrobe’s pockets and my underpants, and started running toward home, where I was going to call the Department of Homeland Security. That’s when I was arrested. I did what I did to save the mail. Everything else was an accident. Check my arrest record! I’ve never been arrested for anything like this before. The closest was when I was accused of stealing an ATM, but that was an accident too. I had the wrong address and picked it up by accident. It was 3.00 am and I couldn’t see in the dark. I mistook it for the lawn tractor I was supposed to pick up.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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