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.

Extremely devout pilgrims, Zubryzycki relates, might wander the earth penitentially holding their arms above their heads or sleeping on a bed of nails.

From Washington Post • Oct. 17, 2018

At over three and a half hours, the two-concert performance felt long, sometimes penitentially so in the secular sterility of Merkin Concert Hall.

From New York Times • Aug. 24, 2016

The Emperor Henry IV knelt penitentially in the snows of Canossa before Pope Gregory VII; France's King Philip the Fair, a few centuries later, made a virtual prisoner of Boniface VIII.

From Time Magazine Archive

Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.

From Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): the American Crisis by Conway, Moncure Daniel

Ha!—by the way, I think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and penitentially.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol 1-98, 1850-1899 None by Harper, Various (magazine)