confession

From Old French confession, from Latin cōnfessiō (“confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith”).

• IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

confession (countable and uncountable, plural confessions)

1. The open admittance of having done something (especially something bad).

   Without the real murderer's confession, an innocent person will go to jail.

   • Shakespeare

     With a crafty madness keeps aloof, / When we would bring him on to some confession / Of his true state.

2. A formal document providing such an admission.

   He forced me to sign a confession!

3. (Christianity) The disclosure of one's sins to a priest for absolution. In the Roman Catholic Church, it is now termed the sacrament of reconciliation.

   I went to confession and now I feel much better about what I had done.

   • c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:

     (First Folio ed.)

     Hauing diſpleaſ'd my Father, to Lawrence Cell, / To make confeſſion, and to be abſolu'd.

4. Acknowledgment of belief; profession of one's faith.
   • Bible, Rom. x. 10

     With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

5. A formula in which the articles of faith are comprised; a creed to be assented to or signed, as a preliminary to admission to membership of a church; a confession of faith.

• confessional
• nonconfession

• confess

From Latin cōnfessiō (“confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith”).

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.fɛ.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

confession f (plural confessions)

1. confession (admittance of having done something, good, bad or neutral)
2. confession (the disclosure of one's sins to a priest for absolution)
3. creed (a declaration of one's religious faith)

• “confession” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Old French confession

confession (plural confessions)

1. confession

From Latin

confession f (oblique plural confessions, nominative singular confession, nominative plural confessions)

1. confession (the disclosure of one's sins to a clergyman for absolution)