penitential

1. 1.

   showing or constituting penance

   “penitential tears”

   “wrote a penitential letter apologizing for her hasty words”

   Synonymspenitentiary

   Similarpenitent

Questions about penitential

What does penitential mean?

penitential means "showing or constituting penance".

How many syllables are in penitential?

penitential has 5 syllables: pe-ni-ten-ti-al. The stress falls on "ti".

What is another word for penitential?

Close synonyms include penitentiary. 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 penitential a common word?

penitential is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.