shrift
/ʃɹɪft/
shrift noun: the act of going to or hearing a religious confession.
Noun
shrift (countable and uncountable, plural shrifts)
- The act of going to or hearing a religious confession.
- For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, / And seldom felt she any hunger-pain; [...]1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC...
- Confession to a priest.
- Forgiveness given by a priest after confession; remission.
- [Friar:] Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. / Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
shrift meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Kannada
shrift in Tamil
- இரங்கு வினை
shrift in Urdu
- نجات
shrift in Kannada
- ತಪ್ಪೊಪ್ಪಿಕೆ
Forms of shrift
| plural | shrifts |
|---|
Origin of shrift
From Middle English shrift (“confession to a priest; act or instance of this; sacrament of penance; penance assigned by a priest; penitence, repentance; punishment for sin”) [and other forms], from Old English sċrift (“penance, shrift; something prescribed as punishment, penalty; one who passes sentence, a judge”), from sċrīfan (“of a priest: to prescribe absolution or penance; to pass judgment, ordain, prescribe; to appoint, decree”) (whence shrive), from Proto-Germanic *skrībaną (“to write”), from Latin scrībō (“to write”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreybʰ- (“to scratch, tear”). Equivalent to shrive + -t.
Words formed from shrift
Phrases with shrift
Words that rhyme with shrift
Questions about shrift
- What does shrift mean?
- Shrift means the act of going to or hearing a religious confession.
- What is shrift in Tamil?
- Shrift in Tamil is இரங்கு வினை. See Shrift meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is shrift?
- Shrift is a noun.
- How do you pronounce shrift?
- Shrift is pronounced /ʃɹɪft/ (UK).
- What is the plural of shrift?
- The plural of shrift is shrifts.
Words near shrift in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shrift (page history and authors); shrift (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shrift (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shrift (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shrift.wav.
Cite this entry: “shrift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shrift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.