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

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

Let him shrive me, for I am not at all points ready to die....

From Idonia: A Romance of Old London by Arthur F. Wallis

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

At the same time he entreated that a Catholic priest should be sent for to shrive him—that he had been brought up in the Catholic faith, but that he had neglected religion when in health.

From The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry With Legends of the Surrounding Country by Joseph Barry

Since ye gave me blame herein"— Toll slowly— "That a bridal such as mine should lack gauds to make it fine, Come and shrive me from that sin.

From The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume II by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

From Time Magazine Archive

His mother, searching for him some time after the storm had passed, found her repentant little boy almost smothered under a quilt in this closet, and as he confessed his sin, he was tenderly shrived.

From Whittier-land A Handbook of North Essex, Containing Many Anecdotes of and Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier Never Before Collected. by Samuel T. (Samuel Thomas) Pickard

And before they entered their cellar, we are assured, they washed their hands of all intrigues and were shrived of their sins by the Maronite priest of the Colony.

From The Book of Khalid by Ameen Fares Rihani

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

You are my sanctuary, to you my heart bends; the poor pilgrim has come to you to confess and be shrived before he dies.

From The Merchant of Berlin An Historical Novel by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

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

So we may well believe that the King’s men were shriven on the night before they fought Something of the young man’s vision had penetrated to his captains and his soldiers.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

"How can I die better than shriving a fellow sinner?"

From And Thus He Came A Christmas Fantasy by Cyrus Townsend Brady

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

"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

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

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

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

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