Word Meanings - CONFESS - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. To make acknowledgment or avowal in a matter pertaining to one's self; to acknowledge, own, or admit, as a crime, a fault, a debt. And there confess Humbly our faults, and pardon beg. Milton. I must confess I was most pleased with a beautiful

Additional info about word: CONFESS

1. To make acknowledgment or avowal in a matter pertaining to one's self; to acknowledge, own, or admit, as a crime, a fault, a debt. And there confess Humbly our faults, and pardon beg. Milton. I must confess I was most pleased with a beautiful prospect that none of them have mentioned. Addison. 2. To acknowledge faith in; to profess belief in. Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess, also, before my Father which is in heaven. Matt. x. 32. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both. Acts xxiii. 8. 3. To admit as true; to assent to; to acknowledge, as after a previous doubt, denial, or concealment. I never gave it him. Send for him hither, And let him confess a truth. Shak. As I confess it needs must be. Tennyson. As an actor confessed without rival to shine. Goldsmith. To make known or acknowledge, as one's sins to a priest, in order to receive absolution; -- sometimes followed by the reflexive pronoun. Our beautiful votary took an opportunity of confessing herself to this celebrated father. Addison. To hear or receive such confession; -- said of a priest. He . . . heard mass, and the prince, his son, with him, and the most part of his company were confessed. Ld. Berners. 5. To disclose or reveal, as an effect discloses its cause; to prove; to attest. Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mold. Pope. Syn. -- Admit; grant; concede; avow; own; assent; recognize; prove; exhibit; attest. -- To Confess, Acknowledge, Avow. Acknowledge is opposed to conceal. We acknowledge what we feel must or ought to be made known. (See Acknowledge.) Avow is opposed to withhold. We avow when we make an open and public declaration, as against obloquy or opposition; as, to avow one's principles; to avow one's participation in some act. Confess is opposed to deny. We confess (in the ordinary sense of the word) what we feel to have been wrong; as, to confess one's errors or faults. We sometimes use confess and acknowledge when there is no admission of our being in the wrong; as, this, I confess, is my opinion; I acknowledge I have always thought so; but in these cases we mean simply to imply that others may perhaps think us in the wrong, and hence we use the words by way of deference to their opinions. It was in this way that the early Christians were led to use the Latin confiteor and confessio fidei to denote the public declaration of their faith in Christianity; and hence the corresponding use in English of the verb confess and the noun confession.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of CONFESS)

• Allow
• Concede
• apportion
• allot
• assign
• afford
• tolerate
• authorize
• grant
• remit
• recognize
• acknowledge
• avow
• confess
• admit
• permit
• suffer
• sanction
• yield
• Disclose
• Discover
• reveal
• detect
• divulge
• make known
• promulgate
• Own
• Possess
• hold
• have
• Profess
• Declare
• own
• pretend
• proclaim
• lay claim to

Related words: (words related to CONFESS)

• ASSIGNEE
  In England, the persons appointed, under a commission of bankruptcy, to manage the estate of a bankrupt for the benefit of his creditors. (more info) A person to whom an assignment is made; a person appointed or deputed by another to do some act,
• CONFESSION
  The act of disclosing sins or faults to a priest in order to obtain sacramental absolution. Auricular confession . . . or the private and special confession of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution. Hallam. 4. A formulary
• PROFESSORY
  Of or pertaining to a professor; professorial. Bacon.
• POSSESSIVE
  Of or pertaining to possession; having or indicating possession. Possessive case , the genitive case; the case of nouns and pronouns which expresses ownership, origin, or some possessive relation of one thing to another; as, Homer's admirers; the
• ADMITTER
  One who admits.
• CONFESSER
  One who makes a confession.
• PROFESSORIALISM
  The character, manners, or habits of a professor.
• PERMIT
  1. To consent to; to allow or suffer to be done; to tolerate; to put up with. What things God doth neither command nor forbid . . . he permitteth with approbation either to be done or left undone. Hooker. 2. To grant express license or liberty
• DETECTOR BAR
  A bar, connected with a switch, longer than the distance between any two consecutive wheels of a train , laid inside a rail and operated by the wheels so that the switch cannot be thrown until all the train is past the switch.
• ALLOTTABLE
  Capable of being allotted.
• PROFESSORIAT
  See PROFESSORIATE
• YIELD
  pay, give, restore, make an offering; akin to OFries. jelda, OS. geldan, D. gelden to cost, to be worth, G. gelten, OHG. geltan to pay, restore, make an offering, be worth, Icel. gjalda to pay, give up, Dan. gielde to be worth, Sw. gälla to be
• ALLOWEDLY
  By allowance; admittedly. Shenstone.
• ALLOTRIOPHAGY
  A depraved appetite; a desire for improper food.
• CONFESSIONALISM
  An exaggerated estimate of the importance of giving full assent to any particular formula of the Christian faith. Shaff.
• ALLOW
  allocare to admit as proved, to place, use; confused with OF. aloer, fr. L. allaudare to extol; ad + laudare to praise. See Local, and cf. 1. To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction. Ye allow the deeds of your fathers. Luke xi. 48. We commend
• ALLOWER
  1. An approver or abettor. 2. One who allows or permits.
• ACKNOWLEDGE
  1. To of or admit the knowledge of; to recognize as a fact or truth; to declare one's belief in; as, to acknowledge the being of a God. I acknowledge my transgressions. Ps. li. 3. For ends generally acknowledged to be good. Macaulay. 2. To own
• YIELDABLE
  Disposed to yield or comply. -- Yield"a*ble*ness, n. Bp. Hall.
• PROFESSEDLY
  By profession.
• LONG-SUFFERANCE
  Forbearance to punish or resent.
• HALLOW
  To make holy; to set apart for holy or religious use; to consecrate; to treat or keep as sacred; to reverence. "Hallowed be thy name." Matt. vi. 9. Hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein. Jer. xvii. 24. His secret altar touched with hallowed
• CALLOW
  1. Destitute of feathers; naked; unfledged. An in the leafy summit, spied a nest, Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow pressed. Dryden. 2. Immature; boyish; "green"; as, a callow youth. I perceive by this, thou art but a callow maid. Old Play .
• THRYFALLOW
  To plow for the third time in summer; to trifallow. Tusser.
• RECLAIMABLE
  That may be reclaimed.
• SUPREMITY
  Supremacy. Fuller.
• SALLOWISH
  Somewhat sallow. Dickens.
• WALLOWER
  A lantern wheel; a trundle. (more info) 1. One who, or that which, wallows.