Penitence

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of being penitent; a feeling of regret or remorse for doing wrong or sinning. countable, uncountable

    "an assassin who misses his aim and flounders into penitence much as that discomfortable drama misses its point and stumbles into vacuity"

  2. 2
    remorse for your past conduct wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
repentancecompunctionpenanceremorserepentanceabject apology

Example

More examples

"They demand public penitence from me."

Etymology

First attested circa 13th century, from Middle English penitence, from Old French penitence, from Latin paenitentia (“repentance, penitence”), from paenitēns (“penitent”), present active participle of paeniteō (“regret, repent”). Equivalent to penitent + -ence. Doublet of penance.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.