Repentance
nounSincere regret or remorse for one's wrongdoing, often with a resolve to change.
How to spell repentance
10 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce repentance
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does repentance mean?
- nounSincere regret or remorse for one's wrongdoing, often with a resolve to change.
Repentance in a sentence
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His quiet repentance was clear when he returned the money he had taken.
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The letter expressed genuine repentance for the harm her words had caused.
Where does repentance come from?
Language of origin: French
This word travelled into English from Old French repentance during the 1300s, built on the verb repentir, meaning 'to feel regret or remorse'. The French verb was a strengthened form of the Latin paenitere, which meant 'to cause sorrow' or 'to make one sorry', and from which we also get 'penitent' and 'penance'. The re- at the front was originally an intensifying element rather than a sense of 'again', so the word really meant a deep, settled sorrow for what one has done. Over the centuries it gathered strong moral and religious overtones, describing not just regret but a turning away from wrongdoing. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the unstressed vowel before the -t is a faint schwa, so writers reach for 'repentence' by mistake, when the ending is the Latin-derived -ance.
How the word is built
- re- (intensive)
- pent- (from Latin paenitere: to be sorry, to regret)
- -ance (noun-forming suffix denoting a state)
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