Wiktionary

confession

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English confessioun, from Old French confession, from Latin cōnfessiō, cōnfessiōnem (“confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith”). Displaced native Old English andetnes. Doublet of confessio.

Morphologically confess +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kənˈfɛʃən/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛʃən

Noun

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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 could be jailed.
  2. A formal document providing such an admission.
    He forced me to sign a confession!
    • 1968, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties‎[1], Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 493:
      Both the basic idea of confession, and the techniques devised by Yezhov for extracting them, however, were to receive significant employment in Asia in the 1950s. The Chinese accused the Americans of waging bacteriological warfare in Korea. The evidence they produced consisted of feathers, insects, clams, rats, and other things riddled with germs and allegedly dropped from American planes. Such evidence was not, on the face of it, very convincing - though even this was accepted by one type of Westerner. To fortify their case, the Chinese resorted to confessions, extracted from American pilots.
  4. (Christianity) The disclosure of one's sins to a priest for absolution. In the Roman Catholic Church, it is now also termed the sacrament of reconciliation.
    I went to confession and now I feel much better about what I had done.
    • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
      Hauing diſpleaſ'd my Father, to Lawrence Cell, / To make confeſſion, and to be abſolu'd.
  5. Acknowledgment of belief; profession of one's faith.
  6. 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.

Derived terms

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Translations

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French

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kɔ̃.fɛ.sjɔ̃/ ~ /kɔ̃.fe.sjɔ̃/
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

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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)

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → German: Konfession
  • → Romanian: confesiune

Further reading

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Friulian

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Noun

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confession f (plural confessions)

  1. confession

Middle English

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Noun

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confession (plural confessions)

  1. alternative form of confessioun

Occitan

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Etymology

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From Latin cōnfessiō.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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confession f (plural confessions)

  1. confession
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Further reading

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Old French

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin cōnfessiō, cōnfessiōnem.

Noun

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

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

Descendants

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