1. (a.) Relating to penance, or to the rules and measures of penance.
2. (a.) Expressive of penitence; as, a penitentiary letter.
3. (a.) Used for punishment, discipline, and reformation.
4. (n.) One who prescribes the rules and measures of penance.
5. (n.) One who does penance.
6. (n.) A small building in a monastery where penitents confessed.
7. (n.) That part of a church to which penitents were admitted.
8. (n.) An office of the papal court which examines cases of conscience, confession, absolution from vows, etc., and delivers decisions, dispensations, etc. Its chief is a cardinal, called the Grand Penitentiary, appointed by the pope.
9. (n.) An officer in some dioceses since A. D. 1215, vested with power from the bishop to absolve in cases reserved to him.
10. (n.) A house of correction, in which offenders are confined for punishment, discipline, and reformation, and in which they are generally compelled to labor.
Thesaurus Entries
Grand Penitentiary, Holy Father, POW camp, abuna, antipope, archbishop, archdeacon, archpriest, bail, bastille, bishop, bishop coadjutor, black hole, borstal, borstal institution, bridewell, brig, can, canon, cardinal, cardinal bishop, cardinal deacon, cardinal priest, cassock, cell, chaplain, coadjutor, concentration camp, condemned cell, confessor, cooler, coop, curate, cure, dean, death cell, death house, death row, detention camp, diocesan, ecclesiarch, exarch, father, father confessor, father in Christ, federal prison, forced-labor camp, gallach, gaol, guardhouse, hierarch, high priest, hoosegow, house of correction, house of detention, industrial school, internment camp, jail, jailhouse, keep, labor camp, lockup, maximum-security prison, metropolitan, minimum-security prison, oubliette, padre, papa, parish priest, patriarch, pen, penal colony, penal institution, penal settlement, pontiff, pope, prebendary, prelate, presbyter, priest, primate, prison, prison camp, prisonhouse, rector, reform school, reformatory, rural dean, spiritual director, spiritual father, sponging house, state prison, stockade, subdean, suffragan, the hole, tollbooth, training school, vicar
