Other forms: confessionals
A confessional is the small booth where a priest hears confessions. Enter the confessional, the seal of the confessional, a wooden confessional.
The grille between the two halves keeps the penitent unseen, which is the point of it. As an adjective the word means openly revealing private feelings, as in confessional poetry.
1nounconfessionalThe small booth where a priest hears confessions.
“He waited by the confessional until the church had emptied.”
confessional is a booth.
French confessionnal comes from Latin confessio, from confiteri, to acknowledge, from com plus fateri, to admit.
Latin
cōnfessiō — confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith
Old French
confession
Middle English
confessioun
English
confession
English, today
confessional
From confession + -al. confession comes from Middle English confessioun, from Old French confession, from Latin cōnfessiō (“confession, acknowledgment, creed or avowal of one's faith”). Displaced native andetnes. a doublet of confessio. Morphologically confess + -ion. Sense 6 is a calque of 告白 (kokuhaku).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA