Search the Dictionary

d; lagging; slack; hence, lacking earnestness or activity; languid; slow. Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness. Milton. These nervous, bold; those languid and remiss. Roscommon. Its motion becomes more languid and remiss. Woodward.

Inclined to remit punishment; lenient; clement. Drayton.

The state or quality of being remissible. Jer. Taylor.

Capable of being remitted or forgiven. Feltham.

penalty, debt, etc. This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Matt. xxvi. 28. That ples, therefore, . . . Will gain thee no remission. Milton.

Remitting; forgiving; abating. Bp. Hacket.

In a remiss or negligent manner; carelessly.

Quality or state of being remiss.

Serving or tending to remit, or to secure remission; remissive. "A sacrifice expiatory or remissory." Latimer.

Not remissible; unpardonable; as, irremissible crimes. Burke. -- Ir`re*mis"si*ble, n. -- Ir`re*mis"si*bly, adv.

Refusal of pardon.

Not remitting; unforgiving.

-- Forgiveness, Pardon. Forgiveness is Anglo-Saxon, and pardon Norman French, both implying a giving back. The word pardon, being early used in our Bible, has, in religious matters, the same sense as forgiveness; but in the language of common life there is a difference between them, such as we often find between corres…

Premise. Whately. I. Watts

a subject from his allegiance; to absolve an offender, which amounts to an acquittal and remission of his punishment. Halifax was absolved by a majority of fourteen. Macaulay.

Gratuitous discharge; a release from debt or obligation without payment; free remission.

s condition, to be whipped at the high cross every morning. Shak. Many are apt to believe remission of sins, but they believe it without the condition of repentance. Jer. Taylor.

Direction or tendency to a certain end; impulsion. Remissness can by no means consist with a constant determination of the will . . . to the greatest apparent good. Locke.

Remission of the temporal punishment due to sins, after the guilt 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 churc…

Incapable of, or indisposed to, effective action; habitually slack or remiss; effecting little or nothing; as, inefficient workmen; an inefficient administrator.