shrive

American  

[shrahyv] / ʃraɪv /

verb (used with object)

shrove, shrived, shriven, shrived, shriving

1. to impose penance on (a sinner).

2. to grant absolution to (a penitent).

3. to hear the confession of (a person).

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verb (used without object)

Archaic.

shrove, shrived, shriven, shrived, shriving

1. to hear confessions.

2. to go to or make confession; confess one's sins, as to a priest.

shrive British  

/ ʃraɪv /

verb

1. to hear the confession of (a penitent)

2. (tr) to impose a penance upon (a penitent) and grant him sacramental absolution

3. (intr) to confess one's sins to a priest in order to obtain sacramental forgiveness

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Other Word Forms

• shriver
  noun
• unshrived
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of shrive

First recorded before 900; Middle English shriven, schrifen, Old English scrīfan “to prescribe, impose a penance on (a penitent),” cognate with German schreiben “to write,” ultimately from Latin scrībere “to write, draw”; see scribe ¹

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Explanation

To shrive is to hear someone's confession and forgive them. It's not easy, but once your brother has admitted to reading your diary and apologized, it's best to shrive him and move on. Though this verb is mainly considered to be archaic, you may occasionally come across it in the context of a Catholic priest absolving someone of sin. You can also shrive yourself by laying your sins or misdeeds on the table, in hopes of absolution and forgiveness: "After my friend was blamed for stealing those cookies, I decided to shrive myself and promise never to do it again."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

shrive shrived shriven shriving shrove

No play to make first-night audiences shrive themselves for past sins is American Landscape.

From Time Magazine Archive

Thus shall we rest for evermore, My brothers dear and I: Haste, cleric, haste, baptise and shrive, For death at last is nigh!

From Old Celtic Romances by Unknown

Saint Petronila shrive me! when we became most intimate, and after much beating about the bush, I discovered that his master— Perez.

From Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

The lawyers came and took her depositions; the priests, also, to shrive her soul.

From The Browning Cyclop?dia A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning by Edward Berdoe

But,' he said, 'is it not needful to the lay people that cannot thus do, to go shrive them to priests?'

From Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse by Various

The dying man's ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet by holy unction were shrived.

From Time Magazine Archive

And I believe my love is shrived in heaven, And I believe that I shall soon be free.

From Poems by John Hay

The next year, when the earl found himself in the power of his foes at Evesham, the aged bishop of Worcester again shrived his host before the battle.

From The English Church in the Middle Ages by William Hunt

I do, indeed, know the lady," he said, "and even when last at court, on this errand of Colon's, their own confessor being ill, I shrived her, as well as my royal mistress.

From Mercedes of Castile The Voyage to Cathay by J. Fenimore Cooper

A holy friar who shrived the dying man told me the name of him who fell was Gaspar.

From Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

Then I grab the lever, record myself with a manly fling, and walk out, shriven, to go to work.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 5, 2018

I mean the midlife crisis story, in which a man suddenly finds himself shriven of the beliefs that have hitherto defined him.

From New York Times ● Feb. 15, 2017

But 30,000ft above the Atlantic, he is seized by the need to be shriven, and makes his confession to a cassette recorder he addresses as "Father Sony".

From The Guardian ● Feb. 21, 2011

She died, still pregnant, but properly shriven, and within a minute Dr. Corbit had her abdomen open and a 34-lb. girl in an incubator.

From Time Magazine Archive

“I swear by heaven, though now I must be shriven for doing so! Therefore come, let us go and together lose our sins.”

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

For Italy's 45,000,000 people, surrender came as a national shriving, a chance for national redemption.

From Time Magazine Archive

There are those who suggest irreverently that Miss Nichols is shriving herself before the critics by importing accredited Art.

From Time Magazine Archive

With the hiding of Anthony Dexter's body beneath the shriving sod, all would be over save memory.

From A Spinner in the Sun by Myrtle Reed

I think," said John Splendid, "it would be a strange day when MacCailein Mor, Marquis of Argile, would ask or need shriving from anything or any one.

From John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn by Neil Munro

But see, stay not thy shriving, for the time is short, and the Lord ever ready to pardon.”

From Gathering of Brother Hilarius by Michael Fairless

Shrovetide was, in times gone by, a season of such mirth that shroving, or to shrove, signified to be merry.

From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer

But the neighbouring wives, Who ne'er shrove in their lives,— Such wickedness Sathanas whispers!—

From The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme by Thomas Cooper

To be shriven, or shrove, means to obtain absolution from one's sin.

From Old English Sports, Pastimes and Customs by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

It was I who shrove him when he lay dying of his wounds, and a nobler soul never passed from earth to heaven.

From The Brethren by Henry Rider Haggard

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