confession

CEFRB1

/kənˈfɛʃən/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
A statement admitting that you did something wrong.
02
noun
Extra detail
A formal document providing such an admission.

Examples

Having heard his love confession, the girl blushed.
The police forced a confession from her.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

The disclosure of one's sins to a priest for absolution. In the Roman Catholic Church, it is now also termed the sacrament of reconciliation.
The open admittance of having done something (especially something bad).
Acknowledgment of belief; profession of one's faith.

More examples

In context

He forced me to sign a confession!
I went to confession and now I feel much better about what I had done.
Without the real murderer's confession, an innocent person could be jailed.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The criminal's written blank detailed how the crime was committed.

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Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

With a crafty madness keeps aloof, / When we would bring him on to some confession / Of his true state.
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), Lon...
If you’re looking for juicier confessions – that is, admissions of the kinds of sins unearthed on detective shows or reality TV – then you’ll want to look elsewhere. My sinning life is rather uneventful.
2014 November 12, James Martin, “Confessions of a Catholic priest”, in CNN
That all changed last month when 37-year-old Peralta borrowed a phone, called police and made a blunt confession to a crime he says he committed nearly 15 years ago, according to an arrest affidavit.
2023 June 2, Cheri Mossburg, Andi Babineau and Christal Hayes, “‘I’m just tired of covering it up’: Guilt drives man to confess to murder 15 years after killing, police say”, in CNN
Both the basic idea of confession, and the techniques devised by Yezhov for extracting them, however, were to receive significant employment in Asia in the 1950s. The Chinese accused the Americans of waging bacteriological warfare in Korea. The evidence they produced consisted of feathers, insects, clams, rats, and other things riddled with germs and allegedly dropped from American planes. Such evidence was not, on the face of it, very convincing - though even this was accepted by one type of Westerner. To fortify their case, the Chinese resorted to confessions, extracted from American pilots.
1968, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 493
Hauing diſpleaſ'd my Father, to Lawrence Cell, / To make confeſſion, and to be abſolu'd.
c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]

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Origin

noun

From Middle English confessioun, from Old French confession, from Latin cōnfessiō, cōnfessiōnem (“confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith”). Displaced native Old English andetnes. Doublet of confessio. Morphologically confess + -ion. Sense 6 is a calque of 告白 (kokuhaku).

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Quick test

The criminal's written blank— detailed how the crime was committed.

Nearby

Origin

noun

The criminal's written blank detailed how the crime was committed.