penitent, a. and n.
(ˈpɛnɪtənt)
Also 4 penytaunt, 4–6 penytent.
[a. OF. pénitent (14th c. in Littré), ad. L. pænitēnt-em, pr. pple. of pænitēre (pœn-, pèn-) to repent; this as a learned form, in ecclesiastical use, gradually displaced the popular OF. peneant, -ant, and ME. penant. In pænitēre and its derivatives, the original L. form is held to have been with pæ-, but in med.L. pœ- was usual; in Romanic pe-.]
A. adj.
1. a. That repents, with serious purpose to amend the sin or wrongdoing; repentant, contrite.
| c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxxiv. (Pelagia) 190 [I pray] þat þu me penytent wald take & to Iesu reconforte me. c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶13 He shal be verray penitent. 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) IV. 461 [Titus] seide that he didde never that thynge in his lyfe whereof he was soory and penitente. 1552 Bk. Com. Prayer, Absolution, To declare and pronounce to his people, beinge penitent, the absolution and remission of their synnes. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 1097 So spake our Father penitent, nor Eve Felt less remorse. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 46, I made him take two of those penitent mutineers with him. 1840 J. H. Newman Par. Serm. III. viii, A penitent prodigal who has squandered God's gifts. 1902 W. E. Norris Credit of County ii, She was in short penitent, but scarcely to the extent of being remorseful. |
b. transf. of things: Expressive of repentance.
| 1723 De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 224 Though she wrote me several penitent letters, acknowledging her crime, and begging me to forgive her. |
† 2. Regretful, grieved; relenting, sorry, vexed. Const. of, upon. Obs. rare.
| 1533 Bellenden Livy v. (1822) 439 Ye sal nocht be penitent of oure faith, nor we sal nocht be penitent of youre empire. 1609 Bible (Douay) Manasseh, Thou art our Lord, most high, benigne, long-suffering, and very merciful, and penitent upon the wickednes of men. |
3. Undergoing penance. In quot. 1613 transf. Proper to penance or fasting days: cf. penance n. 3 b, Lenten a. 2.
| 1590 Shakes. Com. Err. i. ii. 52 But we that know what 'tis to fast and pray, Are penitent for your default to day. 1613 Beaum. & Fl. Coxcomb ii. ii, Not a doore open now, but double bard,..the very smithes that were halfe venturers, drink penitent single ale. |
B. n.
1. One who repents; a repentant sinner.
| 1434 Misyn Mending of Life 108 Emonge þis þe penitent manly hym-self bus vse & gostely armore take. 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 525/1 For penitentes are accompted among the good. 1680 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) I. 53 The earl of Rochester is lately dead,..and though he lived but a debauch'd kind of life, yet he died a great penitent. a 1740 Waterland Serm., 1 John iii. 9 (1742) II. 23 The question was not about dying Penitents. 1849 Dickens Dav. Copp. lxi, The only unchallengeable way of making sincere..penitents. |
2. A person performing (ecclesiastical) penance; one under the direction of a confessor; also, in the early church, a member of one of four ranks into which those guilty of any of the mortal sins were divided (see quot. 1850).
| 1412–20 Lydg. Chron. Troy ii. xiii. (1513) H vj, As a penitaunt in contritioun Ye you disraye. a 1425 Langl. P. Pl. C. v. 130 Prouisour oþer prest oþer penaunt [Camb. MS. Ff. 5. 35, penytaunt] for hus synnes. 1546 Bale Eng. Votaries i. 42 Guenhera..was after hys death deuoutely receyued into ambesburye nondrye, as a penitent. 1601 Shakes. All's Well iii. v. 97 Of inioyn'd penitents There's foure or fiue, to great S. Iaques bound, Alreadie at my house. 1662 Jesuits Reasons (1675) N iv, Who having been..Scholars of the Jesuits, were actually, when they dyed, Penitents of the Jesuits. 1704 Nelson Fest. & Fasts ii. (1739) 437 A Penitent, who after Baptism having committed some grievous Sin, was..excluded the Assemblies of Christians. 1850 Neale East. Ch. I. ii. ii. 208 The four orders of penitents were..the Flentes, whose place was in the porch; the Audientes, in the narthex; the Consistentes and Substrati, in the lower part of the nave. 1854 Milman Lat. Chr. vii. ii, The King..clad only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent. |
3. pl. A name designating various Roman Catholic congregations or orders, associated for mutual discipline, the giving of religious aid to criminals, etc., or forming refuges for reformed prostitutes. Rarely in sing., a member of such an association.
| 1693 tr. Emilianne's Hist. Monast. Ord. xix. 221 Henry the III,..having seen..the Procession of the White Penitents at Avignon. 1706 tr. Dupin's Eccl. Hist. 16th C. II. iv. xi. 449 Those of the Third Order of St. Francis, who are called Penitents, were at first only a Congregation of Seculars of both Sexes. 1727–41 Chambers Cycl., Penitents,..certain fraternities, or societies of persons who assemble together for prayers, make processions bare-footed, their faces covered with linen, and give themselves discipline, &c. There are white penitents in Italy, at Avignon, and at Lyons... There are also blue penitents, and black penitents, which last assist criminals at their death, and give them burial. 1797 Mrs. Radcliffe Italian Prol. (1826) 3 A church belonging to a very ancient convent of the order of the Black Penitents. 1797 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 124. 1871 Hook Ch. Dict. 577. |
† 4. Puttenham's name for the rhetorical figure, by which the speaker or writer subsequently retracts or corrects a term used by him. Obs.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 224 Other⁓whiles we speake and be sorry for it, as if we had not wel spoken, so that we seeme to call in our word againe, and to put in another fitter for the purpose: for which..the Greekes called this..the figure of repentance... I following the Greeke originall, choose to call him the penitent, or repentant. |
5. Geogr. [See quot. 19541.] A spike or pinnacle of compact snow or ice which results from differential ablation of a snow or ice field exposed to the sun, occurring esp. in high mountain ranges and freq. in large groups containing specimens of similar size and orientation. Freq. attrib. or as adj.
| [1910 Geogr. Jrnl. XXXV. 125 Among the variety of views that have been advanced, observers have practically agreed that one factor essential to the production of penitentes,..is the unequal melting of névé under the application of heat in some form, principally that of the sun.] 1922 Wright & Priestley Glaciology viii. 288 Plate CXCV shows an example of penitent-ice from the Ferrar glacier. 1936 G. Seligman Snow Struct. vi. 131 It has been postulated..that the ablative effect in penitent snow has been intensified by the presence of solid matter to absorb the sun's heat. 1941 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CCXXXIX. 382 ‘Penitent’ ice-forms, modelled in some degree by evaporation processes and associated with the same structures, have been described from Antarctica. 1954 Jrnl. Glaciology II. 331 We venture to translate the words used by Chileans and Argentinians into English: penitentes (noun), campo de penitentes (field of penitents). Nieve penitente is not used, and nieve de los penitentes means ‘snow from the penitents’. Both expressions have been introduced into international literature by..glaciologists who did not know Spanish very thoroughly. Ibid. 336 When the snow field lies directly upon the ground, the channels between the penitents often succeed in reaching the ground, and the penitents, detaching themselves from one another, assume the vague appearance of an Easter procession of white-cowled Spanish penitents. 1954 W. Noyce South Col. v. 83 The ice..had ribbed and wrinkled into bigger honeycomb, more like the ice pinnacles called ‘penitents’. 1959 R. E. Huschke Gloss. Meteorol. 416 Penitent ice is most developed on low-latitude mountains, especially the Chilean Andes, but has been found even in polar regions. 1972 Cambridge Mountaineering 38 An additional reason for travelling to Afghanistan had been to study certain snow formations, called penitents. Ibid. 39 Our ‘penitents’..were spread all over the place both on the snowfields and sometimes also on the rock surfaces... Their only use turned out to be on steep snow slopes where they provided useful handholds—provided one didn't put too much trust in them. |
6. attrib. penitent-form, a form or bench for penitents; the ‘stool of repentance’.
| 1865 Wesleyan-Methodist Mag. Nov. 484 She was the first to come to the penitent form. 1881 Doctrines & Discipline Salvation Army §28 Bring them out to the penitent form before the people, and so test them further, and pledge them publicly. 1887 Hall Caine Deemster iii. 45 The Testament falling open on to the penitent-form. 1896 Ackworth Clog Shop Chron. 305 (E.D.D.) An' yond's the penitent-form. |