Word.ws English Dictionary

penitency

penitency is the obsolete form of penitence.

Meaning of penitence

Noun

penitence (countable and uncountable, plural penitences)

  1. The condition of being penitent; a feeling of regret or remorse for doing wrong or sinning.
    • an assassin who misses his aim and flounders into penitence much as that discomfortable drama misses its point and stumbles into vacuity1886, Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Age of Shakespeare, John Webster

Forms of penitency

pluralpenitencies

Questions about penitency

What is penitency the obsolete form of?
Penitency is the obsolete form of penitence.

Words near penitency in the dictionary

  1. penitence
  2. penitencer
  3. penitencers
  4. penitences
  5. penitencies
  6. penitency
  7. penitent
  8. penitente
  9. penitentes
  10. penitential
  11. penitentiality

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penitency (page history and authors); penitence (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: “penitency.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/penitency. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.