Penanced

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have experienced self-imposed discipline or suffering as a means of seeking forgiveness for past misdeeds
2. To have undergone a practice of atoning through personal hardship or reflection, aiming for redemption from previous wrongs
3. To have engaged in a voluntary act of contrition that involves enduring trials or discomfort with the goal of reconciliation for earlier faults

Etymology: "Penanced" is the past tense and past participle of "penance," so its history is that of the noun. The noun passed into Middle English as "penaunce," coming from Anglo-Norman, the French dialect used in England after 1066, where it had descended from Old French "peneance." Behind that lies Latin "paenitentia," meaning repentance or penitence. English also took the same Latin root a second time, through a different route, giving us "penitence," so the two words are doublets. The Latin noun itself comes from "paenitere," to repent, and the sense of suffering that English now attaches to penance grew out of the idea of repentance expressed through hardship. To do penance was to show regret by accepting an unpleasant cost, and that is the sense the verb preserves when someone is said to have been penanced.

Synonyms: atoned, repented