Word.ws English Dictionary

shrifts

shrifts is the plural of shrift.

Meaning of shrift

Noun

shrift (countable and uncountable, plural shrifts)

  1. 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...
  2. Confession to a priest.
  3. (obsolete) 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...

Phrases with shrifts

Questions about shrifts

What is shrifts the plural of?
Shrifts is the plural of shrift.

Words near shrifts in the dictionary

  1. shrift
  2. shrift father
  3. shrift fathers
  4. shriftfather
  5. shriftfathers
  6. shrifts
  7. shright
  8. shrights
  9. Shrigley
  10. shrike
  11. shrike-babbler

Source and license

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