Definition of "penances" [penances]

• Plural form of penance. (noun)

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• "Lacerations and what we would call penances, be it remembered, are done to the honour of a Deity; they are not a discipline like the self-whipping of the Flagellants and the jumping of the Jumpers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries."
• "They preached, confessed, and forgave sins, declared that the blood shed in their flagellations had a share with the blood of Christ in atoning for sin, that their penances were a substitute for the sacraments of the church, and that the absolution granted by the clergy was of no avail."
• "When he recalled the penances practised by holy persons, his whole mind was bent on doing something to equal and even surpass them."