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, the former leading and the latter responding in alternate sentences. It is usually of a penitential character. Supplications . . . for the appeasing of God's wrath were of the Greek church termed litanies, and rogations of the Latin. Hooker.

The psalm usually appointed for penitential acts, being the 50th psalm in the Latin version. It commences with the word miserere.

A penitent. [Obs.] Chaucer.

The quality or condition of being penitent; the disposition of a penitent; sorrow for sins or faults; repentance; contrition. "Penitence of his old guilt." Chaucer. Death is deferred, and penitenance has room To mitigate, if not reverse, the doom. Dryden.

prehend sharply and summarily; to chide; to reprove; to admonish. The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered, Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared. Dryden.

The act of repenting, or the state of being penitent; sorrow for what one has done or omitted to do; especially, contrition for sin. Chaucer. Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation. 2. Cor. vii. 20. Repentance is a change of mind, or a conversion from sin to God. Hammond. Repentance is the relinquishment of any p…

Penitent; sorry for sin. Chaucer. Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood. Millton.

With repentance; penitently.

Unregenerate; sinful; impenitent. Baxter.

eep. Weeping cross, a cross erected on or by the highway, especially for the devotions of penitents; hence, to return by the weeping cross, to return from some undertaking in humiliation or penitence. -- Weeping rock, a porous rock from which water gradually issues. -- Weeping sinew, a ganglion. See Ganglion, n., 2.…