Definition of "penance" []

• An act of self-mortification or devotion performed voluntarily to show sorrow for a sin or other wrongdoing. (noun)
• A sacrament in some Christian churches that includes contrition, confession to a priest, acceptance of punishment, and absolution. Also called reconciliation. (noun)
• To impose penance upon. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Pereira (Portuguese), and Wuyka (Polish), we find in Matthew 3: 2, and thirty-four other places, instead of "repent ye" the words, "do penance," while in Matthew 3: 8, and some twenty other places, the word that should be translated "repentance," is rendered _penance."
• ""_I say to you_, says our Saviour, _there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance; more than upon ninety-nine just, who need not penance_, [5] and so the state of redemption is a hundred times better than that of innocence."
• "In what he calls his "penance," the congressman has now written 10,000 letters to the families of fallen servicemen and women."