| 释义 |
penitentiary, a. and n.|pɛnɪˈtɛnʃərɪ|
Also 5–7 -enci-, 7 pœni-, pæni-.
[ad. med.L. pœnitēntiāri-us adj. and n., f. L. pæni-, pœnitēntia penitence: see -ary1. The n. senses represent various ellipt. or absolute uses of the L. adj., viz. med.L. pœnitēntiārius, pœnitēntiāria, *pœnitēntiārium; also = med.L. pœnitēntiāle = liber pœnitēntiālis. These are thus in their proximate derivation independent formations, though all going back to the adj. in L., Fr., or Eng. On this account the adj. is here placed first, though some of the n. senses, taken direct from L. or Fr., were earlier in Eng. use.]
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to penance; administering, or undergoing, penance.
1577tr. Bullinger's Decades (1592) 576 He did quite take awaie the office of that penitentiarie Priesthood. 1581J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 145 Standyng..in dispayred case, is enforced dayly to runne to the second table of Penitentiary Confession for relief. 1626Jackson Creed viii. ii. 11 His entertainement..more despicable than the lodging or entertainement of Pœnitentiary Pilgrimes. 1629in Cramond Ann. Banff (1893) II. 27 He would be enjoyned to satisfie in saccloth vpon the penitentiarie seat. 1678Lively Orac. vii. ix, The penitentiary books and canons. 1845J. H. Newman Ess. Developm. 413 The schism.. led to the appointment of a penitentiary priest in the Catholic Churches.
2. Pertaining to, or expressive of, penitence; repentant. rare.
1791Hist. in Ann. Reg. 15/2 To publish what..might be considered as a penitentiary declaration. a1806C. J. Fox Reign Jas. II (1808) 169 After the death of his friends he..wrote a penitentiary letter to his father. 1817Chalmers Astron. Disc. vii. (1830) 285 At one with the humblest and most penitentiary feeling which Christianity can awaken.
3. Intended for or relating to the penal and reformatory treatment of criminals. Penitentiary House = penitentiary B. 7. Penitentiary Act, the Act 19 Geo. III, c. 74.
1776Bentham Fragm. Govt. (ed. 2) Pref., The Penitentiary system had for its first advocates Mr. Eden..and Sir William Blackstone. 1777Howard Prisons Eng. iii. (1792) 42 The highwayman..the footpad..the habitual thief..should end their days in a penitentiary house, rather than on the gallows. 1779Act 19 Geo. III, c. 74 §5 They..shall erect..two plain strong, and substantial Edifices or Houses, which shall be called The Penitentiary Houses, for the purpose of confining and employing in hard Labour..such..Convicts as..shall be ordered to Imprisonment and hard Labour. 1791Bentham Panopt. Wks. 1843 IV. 144 House of hard labour, it was suggested..is a name by which no house will ever be called, and the well-imagined word penitentiary-house was put in its stead. 1818Southey Ess. (1832) II. 176 Let the prison⁓fare be a penitentiary regimen. 1877tr. H. von Ziemssen's Cycl. Med. VI. 770 Autenrieth drew attention to the frequency of scrofulosis in penitentiaries (so-called penitentiary scrophula).
4. Of an offence: Punishable by imprisonment in a penitentiary (U.S.).
1856Olmsted Slave States 440 As it is a penitentiary offense, the culprit spares no pains or expense to avoid conviction. 1896Daily News 19 Dec. 8/1 Recall..the state of affairs at the end of the war..up to then it had been a penitentiary offence to teach a black to read and write.
B. n.
I. = med.L. pœnitēntiārius.
1. A person appointed to deal with penitents or penances; spec. in R.C. Ch., an officer vested with power to deal with cases which the ordinary parish priest may be incompetent to determine.
1483Cath. Angl. 274/2 A Penytenciary, penitenciarius. a1548Hall Chron., Hen. VIII 51 b, On the Sondaye folowynge the Chaunceller commaunded the Penytensary of Poules, too goo vp to hym and saye a Gospell. 1679J. Smith Narr. Pop. Plot 6 Two Jesuits..were..advanced to be the Popes Penitentiaries. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XIV. 124 Penitentiary, in the ancient Christian church, a name given to certain presbyters or priests, appointed in every church to receive the private confessions of the people. 1885Cath. Dict. (ed. 3) 647/1 This [public penance], in the case of secret sins, came to an end in the Church of Constantinople soon after the abolition of the presbyter ἐπὶ τῆς µετανοίας, or penitentiary, at the close of the fourth century.
b. grand penitentiary, high (chief, great) penitentiary, a cardinal who presides over the office called ‘penitentiary’ (see 4), and has the granting of absolution in cases reserved for the papal authority.
[1581Marbeck Bk. of Notes 803 The most high penitenciarie, Christ.] 1670G. H. Hist. Cardinals i. iii. 84 The office of chief Penitentiary is given by the Pope to a Cardinal alwayes. 1726Ayliffe Parergon 143 [The] Great Penitentiary,..together with his Counsellors, prescribes the measure of Pennance. 1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v., In some places there is a grand penitentiary, and a sub-penitentiary. 1842Brande Dict. Sci. etc. s.v., Briefs granted by the grand penitentiary are at the present time entirely gratuitous, and headed with the words ‘pro Deo’.
†2. = penitent n. 1 and 2. Obs.
1553Becon Reliques of Rome (1563) 61 Flagellatores... They doe beate them selues with scourges... These be admitted by the bishop of Rome as penitentiaries. 1604R. Cawdrey Table Alph., Penitentiarie, one repenting, or doing pennaunce. 1627Jackson Creed xi. xlii. §2 Manasses.. died a Penitentiary. 1654tr. Scudery's Curia Pol. 52 To take revenge on a feeble, wounded, dying Penitentiarie, weeping, and bleeding for his crimes.
3. A member of a religious order so called: cf. penitent n. 3.
1631Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 139 Many other reformations haue beene from time to time of the Franciscans, as by the Minims, Recollects, Penitentiaries, Capuchins, &c. 1683Lorrain Muret's Rites Fun. 254 In the Chappel of St. Petronilla [Rome], when they were digging a Grave for a Penitentiary then lately deceased.
II. = med.L. pœnitēntiāria, F. pénitencerie.
4. R.C. Ch. The office or dignity of a penitentiary; an office or congregation in the Papal Court, presided over by the Grand Penitentiary (see 1 b), and forming a tribunal for deciding upon questions relating to penance, dispensations, etc.
1658Phillips, Penitentiary,..also a place in Rome, where Priests sit and hear the confessions of those that come unto them to that end. 1727–41Chambers Cycl., Penitentiary,..an office, or tribunal in the court of Rome; wherein are examined and delivered out the secret bulls, graces, or dispensations relating to conscience, confession, &c. 1902Daily Chron. 31 Dec. 5/5 A prelate of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Congregation that deals with matrimonial questions.
III. = OF. pen(e)ancerie; in mod.F. pénitenciaire obs., pénitencier.
†5. A place of penitential discipline or punishment for ecclesiastical offences. Obs.
1421Beckington in Lett. Marg. of Anjou & Bp. B. (Camden) 27 Of which lesings one is, that he shulde have made a letter ysett upon Faukener is gate, thanne maire of London, and [he is] cast into the Penitauncery of Poules. 1644H. Vaughan Serm. 13 There is an inestimable disproportion betwixt the afflictions of the severest Penitentiarie and celestiall Blisse.
6. An asylum or house of refuge for prostitutes resolving on amendment of life. Hist.
1806Evangelical Mag. XIV. 616 The Friends of the intended London Female Penitentiary are respectfully informed that a General Meeting will be held on Thursday the 1st day of January 1807. 1854Milman Lat. Chr. iii. iv. (1864) I. 422 The feeling which induced the degraded and miserable victim of the lusts..of men to found, perhaps, the first penitentiaries for her sisters in that wretched class. 1873Liddon Penit. Wk. in Ch. Eng. Pref., The nearness of a House of Refuge or Penitentiary. 1891Daily News 25 Sept. 5/4 The change of title..from the ‘London Female Penitentiary Society’ to the ‘London Female Guardian Society’ has been universally approved of... When the society was founded eighty-four years ago the term ‘Penitentiary’ was well understood to mean a voluntary asylum for the reception of those resolving on amendment of life.
7. A reformatory prison; a house of correction: see Penitentiary House A. 3. In U.S. ‘The place of punishment in which convicts sentenced to confinement and hard labour are confined by the authority of the law’ (Bouvier).
1816Ann. Reg. 368 The General Penitentiary, Milbank, contained 52 males and 76 females..on the 22d May. 1825Jefferson Autobiog. Wks. 1859 I. 47 Its principle..was adopted by Latrobe..by the erection of what is now called the Penitentiary. 1843Penny Cycl. XXV. 152/1 The act 52 Geo. III., c. 44, was framed in conformity with the committee's recommendation, by which act the Penitentiary at Millbank was commenced in 1813. 1885Encycl. Brit. XIX. 748 The great penitentiary still standing after many vicissitudes, but practically unaltered, at Millbank. [Demolished in 1891.] 1898Bouvier's Law Dict. (by F. Rawle) II. 645 There are two systems of penitentiaries in the United States..the Pennsylvania system and the New York system.
IV.
8. = penitential n. 2, penitentiary book: cf. A. 1, quot. 1678. rare.
1853Rock Ch. of Fathers IV. xi. 62 Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury and Ecgberht of York had, severally, drawn up a hand-book known as the penitentiary. |