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Pain; sorrow; suffering. [Obs.] "Joy or penance he feeleth none." Chaucer.

Free from penance. [R.]

The exercise of priestly jurisdiction in the sacrament of penance, by which Catholics believe the sins of the truly penitent are forgiven.

elf-denial by depriving one's self of certain kinds of food or drink, especially of meat. Penance, fasts, and abstinence, To punish bodies for the soul's offense. Dryden.

Millions of spirits for his fault amerced Of Heaven. Milton. Shall by him be amerced with penance due. Spenser.

- Canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as excommunication, degradation, penance, etc. -- Canonical sins (Anc. Church.), those for which capital punishment or puplic penance decreed by the canon was inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.

s are allowable in the spiritual courts for money agreed to be given as a commutation for penance. Blackstone.

Self- inflicted and voluntary corporal punishment, as penance, or otherwise; specifically, a penitential scourge.

To discipline; to correct. [Obs.] And bitter Penance, with an iron whip, Was wont him once to disple every day. Spenser.

leading a soul to God. (b) (R. C. Ch.) A priest who hears confession in the sacrament of penance. -- The Holy Father (R. C. Ch.), the pope.

t of sin has been remitted by sincere repentance; absolution from the censures and public penances of the church. It is a payment of the debt of justice to God by the application of the merits of Christ and his saints to the contrite soul through the church. It is therefore believed to diminish or destroy for sins the…

To enjoin upon; to command. [Obs. & R.] They join them penance, as they call it. Tyndale.

Release; remission; ease; relief. [Obs.] "Of penance had a lisse." Chaucer.

Subjection of the passions and appetites, by penance, absistence, or painful severities inflicted on the body. The mortification of our lusts has something in it that is troublesome, yet nothing that is unreasonable. Tillotson.

To practice penance from religious motives; to deaden desires by religious discipline. This makes him ... give alms of all that he hath, watch, fast, and mortify. Law.

Subduing the appetites, desires, etc.; as, mortifying penances.

A priest who heard confession and enjoined penance in extraordinary cases. [Written also penitenser.] [Obs.] Chaucer.

Doing penance. [Obs.] Shak.

Of or pertaining to penitence, or to penance; expressing penitence; of the nature of penance; as, the penitential book; penitential tears. "Penitential stripes." Cowper. Guilt that all the penitential fires of hereafter can not cleanse. Sir W. Scott.

Relating to penance, or to the rules and measures of penance. "A penitentiary tax." Abp. Bramhall.