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).

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

• shriver
  noun
• unshrived
  adjective

---

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

---

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

He will her shrive for all this gear, and give her penance straight; Wese have our nee'le, else dame Chat comes ne'er within heaven-gate.

From Gammer Gurton's Needle by Mr. S. Mr. of Art

Comest thou hither to shrive me to-night, ere thou doomest me to the wheel to-morrow?

From The Childhood of King Erik Menved An Historical Romance by Bernhard Severin Ingemann

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

I pray thee, shrive me, that my guilty soul May quit in peace this tenement of clay.

From Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Apparently nothing amused him so much as the thought of confession and communion, of being shrived by some stout, healthy priest as worldly as himself, and preferably Irish, like himself.

From Twelve Men by Theodore Dreiser

I paid my dues, and shrived me clean, and lived honestly.

From The White Lady of Hazelwood A Tale of the Fourteenth Century by W. (William) Rainey

A low whisper, occasionally sounding,-assured her that someone was at the confessional; and soon the palmer, who was now shrived, knelt at her side.

From Sketches by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield

And shrived by sorrow and pain, and by prayer, he shall be lifted in her arms, shall rest on her bosom, and her soul shall forth with his into the great unknown.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863 by Various

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

But sometimes he stopped, and bent his head to listen, then lifted his hand in absolution; and Mark knew he was shriving another poor soul.

From Charred Wood by J. Clinton Shepherd

With louder summons ring the rampart-bell, And haste the shriving father from his cell; A soldier's heart rejoices in alarms: And let the trump at midnight sound to arms!

From The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan by George Gilfillan

First fee your priest, then have your shriving.

From The Last of the Vikings by John Bowling

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

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

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

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---