| 释义 |
penitent, a. and n.|ˈpɛnɪtənt|
Also 4 penytaunt, 4–6 penytent.
[a. OF. pénitent (14th c. in Littré), ad. L. pænitēnt-em, pr. pple. of pænitēre (pœn-, pèn-) to repent; this as a learned form, in ecclesiastical use, gradually displaced the popular OF. peneant, -ant, and ME. penant. In pænitēre and its derivatives, the original L. form is held to have been with pæ-, but in med.L. pœ- was usual; in Romanic pe-.]
A. adj.
1. a. That repents, with serious purpose to amend the sin or wrongdoing; repentant, contrite.
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xxxiv. (Pelagia) 190 [I pray] þat þu me penytent wald take & to Iesu reconforte me. c1386Chaucer Pars. T. ⁋13 He shal be verray penitent. 1432–50tr. Higden (Rolls) IV. 461 [Titus] seide that he didde never that thynge in his lyfe whereof he was soory and penitente. 1552Bk. Com. Prayer, Absolution, To declare and pronounce to his people, beinge penitent, the absolution and remission of their synnes. 1667Milton P.L. x. 1097 So spake our Father penitent, nor Eve Felt less remorse. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 46, I made him take two of those penitent mutineers with him. 1840J. H. Newman Par. Serm. III. viii, A penitent prodigal who has squandered God's gifts. 1902W. E. Norris Credit of County ii, She was in short penitent, but scarcely to the extent of being remorseful.
b. transf. of things: Expressive of repentance.
1723De Foe Col. Jack (1840) 224 Though she wrote me several penitent letters, acknowledging her crime, and begging me to forgive her.
†2. Regretful, grieved; relenting, sorry, vexed. Const. of, upon. Obs. rare.
1533Bellenden Livy v. (1822) 439 Ye sal nocht be penitent of oure faith, nor we sal nocht be penitent of youre empire. 1609Bible (Douay) Manasseh, Thou art our Lord, most high, benigne, long-suffering, and very merciful, and penitent upon the wickednes of men.
3. Undergoing penance. In quot. 1613 transf. Proper to penance or fasting days: cf. penance n. 3 b, Lenten a. 2.
1590Shakes. Com. Err. i. ii. 52 But we that know what 'tis to fast and pray, Are penitent for your default to day. 1613Beaum. & Fl. Coxcomb ii. ii, Not a doore open now, but double bard,..the very smithes that were halfe venturers, drink penitent single ale.
B. n.
1. One who repents; a repentant sinner.
1434Misyn Mending of Life 108 Emonge þis þe penitent manly hym-self bus vse & gostely armore take. 1532More Confut. Tindale Wks. 525/1 For penitentes are accompted among the good. 1680Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) I. 53 The earl of Rochester is lately dead,..and though he lived but a debauch'd kind of life, yet he died a great penitent. a1740Waterland Serm., 1 John iii. 9 (1742) II. 23 The question was not about dying Penitents. 1849Dickens Dav. Copp. lxi, The only unchallengeable way of making sincere..penitents.
2. A person performing (ecclesiastical) penance; one under the direction of a confessor; also, in the early church, a member of one of four ranks into which those guilty of any of the mortal sins were divided (see quot. 1850).
1412–20Lydg. Chron. Troy ii. xiii. (1513) H vj, As a penitaunt in contritioun Ye you disraye. a1425Langl. P. Pl. C. v. 130 Prouisour oþer prest oþer penaunt [Camb. MS. Ff. 5. 35, penytaunt] for hus synnes. 1546Bale Eng. Votaries i. 42 Guenhera..was after hys death deuoutely receyued into ambesburye nondrye, as a penitent. 1601Shakes. All's Well iii. v. 97 Of inioyn'd penitents There's foure or fiue, to great S. Iaques bound, Alreadie at my house. 1662Jesuits Reasons (1675) N iv, Who having been..Scholars of the Jesuits, were actually, when they dyed, Penitents of the Jesuits. 1704Nelson Fest. & Fasts ii. (1739) 437 A Penitent, who after Baptism having committed some grievous Sin, was..excluded the Assemblies of Christians. 1850Neale East. Ch. I. ii. ii. 208 The four orders of penitents were..the Flentes, whose place was in the porch; the Audientes, in the narthex; the Consistentes and Substrati, in the lower part of the nave. 1854Milman Lat. Chr. vii. ii, The King..clad only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent.
3. pl. A name designating various Roman Catholic congregations or orders, associated for mutual discipline, the giving of religious aid to criminals, etc., or forming refuges for reformed prostitutes. Rarely in sing., a member of such an association.
1693tr. Emilianne's Hist. Monast. Ord. xix. 221 Henry the III,..having seen..the Procession of the White Penitents at Avignon. 1706tr. Dupin's Eccl. Hist. 16th C. II. iv. xi. 449 Those of the Third Order of St. Francis, who are called Penitents, were at first only a Congregation of Seculars of both Sexes. 1727–41Chambers Cycl., Penitents,..certain fraternities, or societies of persons who assemble together for prayers, make processions bare-footed, their faces covered with linen, and give themselves discipline, &c. There are white penitents in Italy, at Avignon, and at Lyons... There are also blue penitents, and black penitents, which last assist criminals at their death, and give them burial. 1797Mrs. Radcliffe Italian Prol. (1826) 3 A church belonging to a very ancient convent of the order of the Black Penitents. 1797Encycl. Brit. XIV. 124. 1871 Hook Ch. Dict. 577.
†4. Puttenham's name for the rhetorical figure, by which the speaker or writer subsequently retracts or corrects a term used by him. Obs.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 224 Other⁓whiles we speake and be sorry for it, as if we had not wel spoken, so that we seeme to call in our word againe, and to put in another fitter for the purpose: for which..the Greekes called this..the figure of repentance... I following the Greeke originall, choose to call him the penitent, or repentant.
5. Geogr. [See quot. 19541.] A spike or pinnacle of compact snow or ice which results from differential ablation of a snow or ice field exposed to the sun, occurring esp. in high mountain ranges and freq. in large groups containing specimens of similar size and orientation. Freq. attrib. or as adj.
[1910Geogr. Jrnl. XXXV. 125 Among the variety of views that have been advanced, observers have practically agreed that one factor essential to the production of penitentes,..is the unequal melting of névé under the application of heat in some form, principally that of the sun.] 1922Wright & Priestley Glaciology viii. 288 Plate CXCV shows an example of penitent-ice from the Ferrar glacier. 1936G. Seligman Snow Struct. vi. 131 It has been postulated..that the ablative effect in penitent snow has been intensified by the presence of solid matter to absorb the sun's heat. 1941Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CCXXXIX. 382 ‘Penitent’ ice-forms, modelled in some degree by evaporation processes and associated with the same structures, have been described from Antarctica. 1954Jrnl. Glaciology II. 331 We venture to translate the words used by Chileans and Argentinians into English: penitentes (noun), campo de penitentes (field of penitents). Nieve penitente is not used, and nieve de los penitentes means ‘snow from the penitents’. Both expressions have been introduced into international literature by..glaciologists who did not know Spanish very thoroughly. Ibid. 336 When the snow field lies directly upon the ground, the channels between the penitents often succeed in reaching the ground, and the penitents, detaching themselves from one another, assume the vague appearance of an Easter procession of white-cowled Spanish penitents. 1954W. Noyce South Col. v. 83 The ice..had ribbed and wrinkled into bigger honeycomb, more like the ice pinnacles called ‘penitents’. 1959R. E. Huschke Gloss. Meteorol. 416 Penitent ice is most developed on low-latitude mountains, especially the Chilean Andes, but has been found even in polar regions. 1972Cambridge Mountaineering 38 An additional reason for travelling to Afghanistan had been to study certain snow formations, called penitents. Ibid. 39 Our ‘penitents’..were spread all over the place both on the snowfields and sometimes also on the rock surfaces... Their only use turned out to be on steep snow slopes where they provided useful handholds—provided one didn't put too much trust in them.
6. attrib. penitent-form, a form or bench for penitents; the ‘stool of repentance’.
1865Wesleyan-Methodist Mag. Nov. 484 She was the first to come to the penitent form. 1881Doctrines & Discipline Salvation Army §28 Bring them out to the penitent form before the people, and so test them further, and pledge them publicly. 1887Hall Caine Deemster iii. 45 The Testament falling open on to the penitent-form. 1896Ackworth Clog Shop Chron. 305 (E.D.D.) An' yond's the penitent-form. |