PENANCE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Penance

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/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."

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Etymology of 'Penance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Penance" Quotes from Famous Books

... inclined to inquire into the motives that draw so many people out of their beds, to shiver through the streets and in the cold church at such an early hour. Is it religion? Is it superstition? Is it penance? Is it devotion? No doubt many of these silly creatures really believe that the act is pleasing to God; that these genuflexions and orisons, mechanically repeated, will give them grace in His eyes. But it is ...

— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... another tribe. He lived a year or two with the Pawnees, acquiring perfectly their difficult language, and attaining a great influence over them, which he never lost. After several years of such penance, I-e-tan revisited the villages of his nation, and, in 1830, on the death of La Criniere, his elder brother, succeeded ...

— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... deliver it; discover to myself and to this gentleman all that you know about your son's late conduct. Speak, or you shall have your closed lips forced apart, or there shall be found and set you such tormenting penance, that you shall sue with speed to make confession. What! still silent? Bathe no longer that face with tears. Out on thee, crocodile! Oh, that those trite tears were scales, falling, to leave you bare and vulnerable to arrows of adjurement; then, with patience ...

— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... distinctly under the fostering care of the former element, the deaconesses are manifestly favored by the latter. Sisterhoods, again, differ among themselves, some being strongly conventual in their life and practice, adopting the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and a few even advocating penance and confession. The vows are taken for life, and, in connection with the view of the sacred obligation to life-long service, great stress is laid upon the position of the sister as the "bride of Christ"—the same thought of the mysterious union with the heavenly ...

— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... and Mrs. Aalbom sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor Martens had ...

— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

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