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shrift.

The act of going to or hearing a religious confession.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ʃɹɪft/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. The act of going to or hearing a religious confession.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Confession to a priest.

    countable · uncountable
  3. Forgiveness given by a priest after confession; remission.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English shrift (“confession to a priest; act or instance of this; sacrament of penance; penance assigned by a priest; penitence, repentance; punishment for sin”) [and other forms], from Old English sċrift (“penance, shrift; something prescribed as punishment, penalty; one who passes sentence, a judge”), from sċrīfan (“of a priest: to prescribe absolution or penance; to pass judgment, ordain, prescribe; to appoint, decree”) (whence shrive), from Proto-Germanic *skrībaną (“to write”), from Latin scrībō (“to write”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreybʰ- (“to scratch, tear”). Equivalent to shrive + -t.

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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.