PENANCE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Penance

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈɛnəns/ Listen

noun

Penance n.

Repentance. (Obs.)

Pain; sorrow; suffering. (Obs.) "Joy or penance he feeleth none."

(Eccl.) A means of repairing a sin committed, and obtaining pardon for it, consisting partly in the performance of expiatory rites, partly in voluntary submission to a punishment corresponding to the transgression, imposed by a confessor or other ecclesiastical authority. Penance is the fourth of seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. "And bitter penance, with an iron whip." "Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.""

Hence: Any act performed by a person to atone for an offense to another; an act of atonement. (Colloq.)

verb

Penance v. t. (past & past part. penanced) To impose penance; to punish. "Some penanced lady elf."

See images of 'Penance'

Etymology of 'Penance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Penance" Quotes from Famous Books

... weary hours of my penance in arranging the memoirs which follow. Science has again wooed me with her allurements; the stars continue their correspondence. I have not despaired of the great secret of immortality; and though these hairs are few and white, I shall be rejuvenated ...

— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... hand—she had seen it before, restless and betraying, and she knew it meant that Francis was angry or unhappy. She felt curiously out of it all. She had made up her mind once and for all to go through with her penance, if one could call it that. Her mind was so unsettled and hard to make up that, once made up on this particular point, she felt it would be more trouble to stop than to go on. She leaned a little back against Peggy's guarding arm, and let the ...

— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer

... with the frivolousness of a child, or with a sullen reproach that he "did nothing but worry her." For any purposes of companionship, his wife was a nonentity; far better that he had been without one. She made his whole life a penance; she betrayed the frivolous folly of her nature ten times a day; she betrayed her pettish temper, her want of self-control, dyeing Lionel's face of a blood-red. He felt ashamed for her; he felt doubly ashamed for himself—that his mother, that Lucy ...

— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... didst dawn a common benefit upon mortals, wretched Prometheus, as penance for what offense art ...

— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... then went out and wrote a note to Eliab Hill. Then she went into the room of the invalid mother. How sweet she looked, reclining on the bed in the pretty alcove, doing penance for her unwonted pleasure of the night before! The excited girl longed to throw her arms about her neck and weep. It seemed to her that she had never seen any one so lovely and loveable. She went to the bedside and took the slender hand ...

— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

More quotes...