penance

Other forms of penance

plural

penances·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about penance

What does penance mean?

penance means "remorse for your past conduct". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in penance?

penance has 2 syllables: pen-ance. The stress falls on "pen". In IPA it is /ˈpɛnəns/.

What is another word for penance?

Close synonyms include repentance, penitence, self-mortification, self-abasement. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is penance a common word?

penance is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.