penance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English penaunce, also penance,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman penaunce and directly borrowed from Old French peneance, also penance and penanche,^[5][4][3][2] from Latin paenitentia (“repentance, penitence”).^[5][6][7][8] The Latin noun is formed from paenitēns (“penitent”), the present participle of paeniteō (“to cause or feel regret”).^[3][6][8] Etymonline thinks the verb first meant "it is not enough" and derives it from paene (“nearly, almost”), of uncertain origin,^[3] while Collins relates the noun to poena (“penalty”).^[9] In the course of the Old and Middle French periods the popular form was replaced by the church form pénitence, a new adaptation of the same Latin word,^[5][3][10] and Klein calls penitence a learned doublet of penance.^[7] The phrase “to do penance” follows agere paenitentiam of the Latin Bible and faire penance, recorded from the 12th century.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The performance of some act of self-mortification, or the bearing of a penalty, as a sign of sorrow for sin: before 1300, in a 13th-century English lyric.^[5] Barnhart dates penaunce to about 1280, for the church sacrament and for penitence,^[11][4] and Etymonline to about 1300.^[3] In Anglo-Norman the word is recorded from the middle of the 13th century, for a punishment or penalty, the sacrament of penance and a hard undertaking.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word covered both an outward penalty and the inner sorrow behind it: "repentance, penitence" is recorded from before 1325, but is now rare,^[5][3] and the Shorter Oxford marks it obsolete after the late 17th century.^[13] The sacrament, with contrition, confession, satisfaction and absolution, is named from about 1350, in William of Shoreham's poems.^[5][14] Middle English also used the word for a sentence of a law court, including the peine forte et dure of a prisoner who refused to plead (about 1300 to 1769),^[5] for the sufferings of purgatory (about 1395 to 1697, first in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale),^[5] and for the meagre fare of fast days or poor hospitality, as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (about 1400 to 1579).^[5] Chaucer used the word 59 times, for penance, punishment and misery.^[15] The sense "pain, suffering", from about 1380, survives only in weakened, usually ironic use.^[5] In south Cheshire dialect my penance meant one's trouble or burden.^[16] The verb, to impose a penance on, is first found in 1580, in Anthony Munday's Zelauto.^[5][17]

Timeline

• c. 1280 – penaunce, the church sacrament; penitence.^[4]
• before 1300 – self-mortification as a sign of sorrow for sin.^[5][18]
• c. 1300 – a judicial sentence or punishment (obsolete by 1769).^[5]
• before 1325 – repentance, penitence.^[5]
• c. 1350 – the sacrament of penance.^[5]
• c. 1380 – pain, suffering, sorrow.^[5]
• c. 1395 – the sufferings of purgatory (obsolete by 1697).^[5]
• c. 1400 – meagre fare, poor hospitality (obsolete by 1579).^[5]
• 1580 – verb, to impose a penance on.^[5][17]

Meanings

Noun

1. Punishment one takes on willingly to make up for a sin, crime or other wrong: He cleaned the whole kitchen as penance for forgetting her birthday.^[9][17]
2. In Christian practice, prayer, fasting or another discipline imposed by a priest or taken on to show repentance;^[17][5] to do penance, to carry out such a discipline.^{[9][17][5][13]}
3. A sacrament of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and some other churches, made up of contrition, confession, satisfaction and absolution.^[17][5][13]
4. Sorrow for one's wrongdoing; penitence (now rare).^[9][17][5]
5. Something unpleasant that one has to put up with, usually said ironically.^[5]

Verb

1. To impose a penance on someone.^[9][17][5]

Word family

• penanceless
• unpenanced

Related words

• penitence
• penitent
• penitentiary
• repent
• repentance
• penal
• pain

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)