Word.ws English Dictionary

pœnitent

pœnitent is the archaic spelling of penitent.

Meaning of penitent

Adjective

penitent (comparative more penitent, superlative most penitent)

  1. Feeling pain or sorrow on account of one's sins or offenses; feeling sincere guilt.
    • Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite.1671, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC
  2. Doing penance.
    • […] But we that know what ’tis to faſt and pray, / Are penitent for your default to day.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

See all 5 meanings of penitent

Forms of pœnitent

Adjective
comparativemore pœnitent
superlativemost pœnitent
Noun
pluralpœnitents

Questions about pœnitent

What is pœnitent the archaic spelling of?
Pœnitent is the archaic spelling of penitent.

Words near pœnitent in the dictionary

  1. pœcilogony
  2. pœnal
  3. pœnall
  4. pœnalties
  5. pœnalty
  6. pœnitent
  7. pœnitential
  8. pœnitents
  9. pœnological
  10. pœnology
  11. Pœuilly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pœnitent (page history and authors); penitent (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pœnitent.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/p%C5%93nitent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.