Penance

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Penance \Pen"ance\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Penanced}.]
     To impose penance; to punish. "Some penanced lady elf."
     --Keats.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  Penance \Pen"ance\, n. [OF. penance, peneance, L. paenitentia
     repentance. See {Penitence}.]
     1. Repentance. [Obs.] --Wyclif (Luke xv. 7).
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Pain; sorrow; suffering. [Obs.] "Joy or penance he feeleth
        none." --Chaucer.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (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. --Schaff-Herzog
        Encyc.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              And bitter penance, with an iron whip. --Spenser.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,
              And penance more will do."            --Coleridge.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. Hence: Any act performed by a person to atone for an
        offense to another; an act of atonement. [Colloq.]
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  penance
       n 1: remorse for your past conduct [syn: {repentance}, {penitence}]
       2: a Catholic sacrament; repentance and confession and
          satisfaction and absolution
       3: voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some
          wrongdoing [syn: {self-mortification}, {self-abasement}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  59 Moby Thesaurus words for "penance":
     Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, abject apology, amends, apology,
     asceticism, atone, atonement, attrition, baptism, change of heart,
     cold purgatorial fires, compensation, compunction, confirmation,
     contrition, deathbed repentance, do penance, extreme unction,
     fasting, flagellation, hair shirt, heartfelt apology, holy orders,
     lustration, maceration, make amends, matrimony, mea culpa,
     mortification, pay, penal retribution, penalization, penalty,
     penitence, penitential act, penitential exercise, penitently,
     price, punishment, purgation, purgatory, reformation, regret,
     remorse, remorsefulness, reparation, repentance, rue, ruth,
     sackcloth and ashes, saeta, self-mortification, self-punishment,
     seven sacraments, suffer, suffering, the Eucharist,
     wearing a hairshirt
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  PENANCE, eccl. law. An ecclesiastical punishment, inflicted by an 
  ecclesiastical court, for some spiritual offence. Ayl. Par. 420.