Penance

Noun

 * 1) A voluntary self-imposed punishment for a sinful act or wrongdoing.  It may be intended to serve as reparation for the act.
 * 2) A sacrament in some Christian churches.

Quotations

 * 2009: Stuart Heritage, Hecklerspray, Friday the 22nd of May in 2009 at 1 o’clock p.m., “Jon & Kate Latest: People You Don’t Know Do Crap You Don’t Care About”
 * You know all this kerfuffle about Jordan and Peter Andre, and how you don’t know if they’re really splitting up or it’s just an act, and how you can’t be bothered to find out because wasting even a fraction of your brainpower on those bright orange clueless dicksplats would make you just as bad as them and you’d feel duty-bound to fling yourself under an industrial threshing machine as penance? You do? Good.

Related terms

 * penitent

Adjectives for Penance
fearful;  secret;   atrocious;   purgatorial; easy; spiritual; barbarous; suitable; amorous; cruel; harsh; solemn; hearty; superstitious; severe; lingering; true-hearted; honest.

Thesaurus
Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, abject apology, amends, apology, asceticism, atone, atonement, attrition, baptism, change of heart, cold purgatorial fires, compensation, compunction, confirmation, contrition, deathbed repentance, do penance, extreme unction, fasting, flagellation, hair shirt, heartfelt apology, holy orders, lustration, maceration, make amends, matrimony, mea culpa, mortification, pay, penal retribution, penalization, penalty, penitence, penitential act, penitential exercise, penitently, price, punishment, purgation, purgatory, reformation, regret, remorse, remorsefulness, reparation, repentance, rue, ruth, sackcloth and ashes, saeta, self-mortification, self-punishment, seven sacraments, suffer, suffering, the Eucharist, wearing a hairshirt

Translations

 * Catalan:
 * Dutch: boetedoening
 * French:
 * Hungarian: vezeklés


 * Polish:
 * Russian: искупление
 * Serbo-Croatian: pokora