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

The priest obeys the summons, anxious to shrive a sinning soul, and to send her out of the world if not to Paradise, at least to Purgatory.

From Ivory Apes and Peacocks by James Huneker

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

Then he kneeled, and prayed the bishop to shrive and absolve him, beseeching that he might accept him as his brother in the faith.

From Historic Tales, Vol 14 (of 15) The Romance of Reality by Charles Morris

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

So he shrived the host, and at the end they said "Amen" in one voice.

From King Alfred's Viking A Story of the First English Fleet by Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler

And thus regally shrived, might I dare Exhale the warm infinite incense of prayer From my deep soul to thine.

From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various

It has had time to repent while compelled to crouch and behold the result of its work, and it has shrived itself into a state of comparative purity.

From The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

"Father, thou hast shrived many a parting soul!" observed, rather than asked, the other.

From The Bravo by James Fenimore Cooper

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

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

That old pirate, Ramon Alvarez, who had probably told a thousand lies, had told the truth at last in his ardent desire for the shriving of Holy Church.

From Doubloons—and the Girl by John Maxwell Forbes

When I lack shriving, I will go to a priest.

From One Snowy Night Long ago at Oxford by M. (Madelaine) Irwin

To the Priest they send her she gives thanks; but needs not any shriving, or ghostly or other aid from him.

From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle

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

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

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