penance
/ˈpɛn.əns/ verb C2- To impose penance; to punish.
He/she/it penances · Past penanced · Past participle penanced · -ing form penancing
Verb forms
- Base form
- penance
- He/she/it
- penances
- Past
- penanced
- Past participle
- penanced
- -ing form
- penancing
From the library
I’d do penance for being wicked that way.
She had an uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful to set one’s heart so intensely on any human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical than if the girl had been less dear to her.
I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I’d never do such a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned out.
It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance; for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her.
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