confessor
English
Alternative forms
- confessour (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English confessor, confessour, from Anglo-Norman confessour, and its source, Latin cōnfessor, from cōnfiteor (“confess, admit, acknowledge”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kənˈfɛsə/, /ˈkɒnfɛs(ɔ)ə/, /ˈkɒnfɛsɔː/
- (General American) IPA(key): /kənˈfɛsɚ/
- Rhymes: -ɛsə(ɹ)
Noun
confessor (plural confessors, feminine confessoress)
- One who confesses faith in Christianity in the face of persecution, but who is not martyred.
- 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 174:
- Confessors provided the troubled Church with an alternative sort of authority based on their sufferings, particularly when arguments began about how and how much to forgive those Christians who had given way to imperial orders – the so-called ‘lapsed’.
- 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 174:
- One who confesses to having done something wrong.
- (Roman Catholicism) A priest who hears confession and then gives absolution
Translations
one who confesses
|
one who confesses faith in Christianity
|
priest who hears confession
|
References
Beccari, C. (1908) The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, retrieved May 24, 2009, Confessor
Latin
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /konˈfes.sor/, [kõːˈfɛs̠ːɔr]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /konˈfes.sor/, [koɱˈfɛsːor]
Noun
cōnfessor m (genitive cōnfessōris); third declension
- confessor of the Christian faith
- martyr
Declension
Third-declension noun.
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
Nominative | cōnfessor | cōnfessōrēs |
Genitive | cōnfessōris | cōnfessōrum |
Dative | cōnfessōrī | cōnfessōribus |
Accusative | cōnfessōrem | cōnfessōrēs |
Ablative | cōnfessōre | cōnfessōribus |
Vocative | cōnfessor | cōnfessōrēs |
Descendants
- Catalan: confessor
- English: confessor
- French: confesseur
- Italian: confessore
- Portuguese: confessor
- Spanish: confesor
References
- “confessor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- confessor in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
Portuguese
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin confessōrem.
Noun
confessor m (plural confessores, feminine confessora, feminine plural confessoras)
- (religion) confessor (one who confesses faith in a religion, especially Christianity)
- (Roman Catholicism) confessor (priest who hears confession)
Spanish
Noun
confessor m (plural confessores)
- Obsolete spelling of confesor