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

For the sake of Simon Peter, Who so gladly would us shrive, We are walking in the sunlight, We are breathing and alive.

From Two Fishers, and Other Poems by Herbert Edward Palmer

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

"Who will shrive these poor fellows, then, if you have turned your back upon them?" asked Midge, reproachfully.

From Robin Hood by N. C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth

And do you, father,” he added to Garnet, “proceed to shrive him.”

From Guy Fawkes or The Gunpowder Treason by William Harrison Ainsworth

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

From Time Magazine Archive

On Sunday morning mass was said, and men shrived them.

From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 by Rossiter Johnson

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

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

From Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

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

Christendom's faithful, nearly as apprehensive, crowded French churches in record numbers to be shriven.

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

“They need little shriving that are opposite my culverin,” said this strange priest. 

From A Monk of Fife by Andrew Lang

"Charles treats us as mendicants; but if he should chance to see the coffers of our order, he would know we had received something else beside a crust for shriving."

From Mistress Penwick by Dutton Payne

It would be difficult to find in history a more offensive document, and its iniquity was enhanced by the short shriving time which it gave either Servia or Europe.

From The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 What Americans Say to Europe by Various

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

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

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

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

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