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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shrive.

To hear or receive a confession (of sins etc.).

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈʃɹaɪv/
  1. To hear or receive a confession (of sins etc.).

    intransitive · transitive
  2. To free from guilt, to absolve.

    transitive
  3. To prescribe penance or absolution.

    transitive
  4. To confess, and receive absolution.

    intransitive · reflexive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English schryven, from Old English sċrīfan (“1. to decree, pass judgement, prescribe, 3. (of a priest) to prescribe penance or absolution”), from Proto-West Germanic *skrīban, from late Proto-Germanic *skrībaną, a borrowing from Latin scrībō (“write”). Compare West Frisian skriuwe (“to write”), Low German schrieven (“to write”), Dutch schrijven (“to write”), German schreiben (“to write”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk skrive (“to write”), Swedish skriva (“to write”), Icelandic skrifa (“to write”). More at scribe and scribble.

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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.