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Penances

[pen-uhns] Origin

pen·ance

[pen-uhns]
noun
1.
a punishment undergone in token of penitence for sin.
2.
a penitential discipline imposed by church authority.
3.
a sacrament, as in the Roman Catholic Church, consisting in a confession of sin, made with sorrow and with the intention of amendment, followed by the forgiveness of the sin.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English penaunce < Anglo-French; Old French peneance < Latin paenitentia penitence

pen·ance·less, adjective

penance, pennants.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Penances is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

penance
late 13c., "religious discipline or self-mortification as a token of repentance and as atonement for some sin," from Anglo-Fr. penaunce, O.Fr. penance, from L. pænitentia (see penitence). Transf. sense is recorded from c.1300.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary

penance definition


Acts done to make up for sin. (See confession and indulgence.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Dictionary.com, LLC. Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved.
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