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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

penitent.

Feeling pain or sorrow on account of one's sins or offenses; feeling sincere guilt.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈpɛnɪtənt/
  1. Feeling pain or sorrow on account of one's sins or offenses; feeling sincere guilt.

  2. Doing penance.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin paenitēns, poenitēns (“penitent”), present participle of paeniteō, poeniteō (“to cause to repent; to regret, repent”). Doublet of penitente.

noun/ˈpɛnɪtənt/
  1. One who repents of sin; one sorrowful on account of their transgressions.

  2. One under church censure, but admitted to penance; one undergoing penance.

  3. One under the direction of a confessor.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin paenitēns, poenitēns (“penitent”), present participle of paeniteō, poeniteō (“to cause to repent; to regret, repent”). Doublet of penitente.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.