impenitent
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of impenitent
1525–35; < Late Latin impaenitent- (stem of impaenitēns ) unrepentant. See im- 2, penitent
Explanation
To be impenitent is to have no remorse or regrets. Your brother was impenitent when he ate the cupcakes that you had baked for your club fundraiser. Not nice. The word repent is hiding in impenitent. When you repent, you regret or feel sorry about something you've done. Impenitent and repent share the Latin root penitire meaning "to regret," but add im- meaning "not" for impenitent and you've got the opposite: "to not regret or repent." A criminal who is impenitent about feels no shame about what he's done.
Vocabulary lists containing impenitent
Antigone
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Anne of Avonlea
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Inferno
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In Gainsborough’s painting Germain looks imperious and impenitent.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
In Weidman’s novel, the main character, a garment industry climber named Harry Bogen, is an impenitent snake, a moral bottom feeder who knows no bottom.
From New York Times ● Oct. 30, 2023
In Maxwell’s impenitent gaze, we could see the broader audacity of the Epstein affair.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 16, 2019
But her new employer, Politico Europe, was keen to appoint an impenitent to fire warning shots across the commission’s bow.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 18, 2015
As for me," he added and now real laughter was dancing in his eyes: they mocked and challenged and called back the joy of life, "as for me, I am impenitent.
From The Laughing Cavalier The Story of the Ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
