penance

English

From Middle English penaunce, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French peneance, from Latin paenitentia (“penitence”).

penance (plural penances)

A voluntary self-imposed punishment for a sinful act or wrongdoing. It may be intended to serve as reparation for the act.
- Coleridge
  Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, / And penance more will do."
A sacrament in some Christian churches.
(obsolete) repentance
(obsolete) pain; sorrow; suffering
- Chaucer
  Joy or penance he feeleth none.

2009: Stuart Heritage, Hecklerspray, Friday the 22^nd of May in 2009 at 1 o’clock p.m., “Jon & Kate Latest: People You Don’t Know Do Crap You Don’t Care About”
You know all this kerfuffle about Jordan and Peter Andre, and how you don’t know if they’re really splitting up or it’s just an act, and how you can’t be bothered to find out because wasting even a fraction of your brainpower on those bright orange clueless dicksplats would make you just as bad as them and you’d feel duty-bound to fling yourself under an industrial threshing machine as penance? You do? Good.

voluntary self-imposed punishment

Bulgarian: покаяние (bg) n (pokayànie)
Catalan: penitència
Dutch: boetedoening (nl)
French: pénitence (fr)
Georgian: მონანიება (monanieba)
German: Buße (de) f, Bußĺeistung f, Bußübung f, Bußwerk n, Bußverfahren n, Sühnung f, Selbstkasteiung f, Pönitenz f
Hungarian: vezeklés (hu)
Irish: aithrí f
Italian: penitenza (it)
Maori: rīpenetātanga

sacrament in some churches

penance (third-person singular simple present penances, present participle penancing, simple past and past participle penanced)

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