Pardoners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of individuals who seek to grant indulgences or sell pardons typically in a religious context
2. Persons who offer forgiveness for sins, often representing ecclesiastical authority
3. A collective term for those involved in the practice of absolving others from guilt or penance, frequently associated with medieval church practices

Etymology: The plural "pardoners" simply counts more than one person who grants pardon, and the word is built from "pardon" plus the agent suffix "-er". That suffix is the familiar English tail found in "baker" or "singer", and it is an inherited English ending, traced back through Old English "-ere" and, further, to the Latin "-arius" that ran through Old French "-ier". The base word "pardon" came into English from Old French "pardon", which descends from the Late Latin "perdonare", meaning to give up or remit a debt. The Latin root "perdonare" joins "per-", meaning thoroughly, with "donare", to give, so the underlying sense is to give freely and wholly. The Middle English form "pardonen" followed the French pattern, and "pardoner" appeared as a formation on that base. Within the medieval Church, the pardoners were the men who sold indulgences, documents remitting temporal penance for sin. Their role gave the word its strongest association, which Chaucer later drew on in his portrait of a pardoner in "The Canterbury Tales".

Synonyms: forgivers, absolvers