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Webster 1913 Edition
Confessional
Con-fes′sion-al
,Noun.
[F.
confessional
.] The recess, seat, or inclosed place, where a priest sits to hear confessions; often a small structure furnished with a seat for the priest and with a window or aperture so that the penitent who is outside may whisper into the priest’s ear without being seen by him or heard by others.
Con-fes′sion-al
,Adj.
Pertaining to a confession of faith.
Confessional equality
, equality before the law of persons confessing different creeds.
Webster 1828 Edition
Confessional
CONFES'SIONAL
,Noun.
Definition 2024
confessional
confessional
English
Adjective
confessional (not comparable)
- In the manner or style of a confession.
- Officially practicing a particular religion, as a state or organization. See confessionalism 1.
Etymology 2
From French confessionnal.
Noun
confessional (plural confessionals)
- (Roman Catholic church) A small room where confession—the sacrament of reconciliation—is performed by a priest.
- 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 13, in Crime out of Mind:
- In one of the aisles there was an elaborately carved confessional box and I recognised the village priest in his heavy mountain boots and black cassock as he entered it and drew the dark velvet curtains behind him.
-
- A confession
- 2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times:
- When a 35-year-old Bill Clinton, famously the nation’s youngest former governor, set out in 1982 to reclaim the job he had lost two years earlier, he began with a remarkable televised confessional. “My daddy never had to whip me twice for the same thing,” Mr. Clinton told Arkansans in a campaign commercial, acknowledging voters’ anger over his having raised a hated vehicle fee and vowing to listen better if they gave him another chance as governor.
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Related terms
Translations
a small room where confession is performed
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