repentant

UK/ɹəˈpɛntənt/US/ɹəˈpɛntənt/

adjectiveB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — repent sits at #5,431neutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Repentant means genuinely sorry for what you have done. Not caught and embarrassed — sorry, and intending to be different.

The word carries a religious weight it has never quite put down: repentance is confession and a turning away from sin, and repentant sinners fill a great deal of English literature. In ordinary use it keeps that seriousness, so it fits real wrongdoing rather than a forgotten birthday. You will very often meet the negative, and unrepentant is the stronger and commoner of the pair — an unrepentant liar is one who would happily do it again. Remorseful is the everyday synonym with no church attached.

Definitions of repentant

1adjectiverepentantSincerely sorry for having done wrong.B2
“He seemed genuinely repentant in the witness box.”
synonyms: remorseful, contrite

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*peh₁-
Old French
repentant
Middle English
repentant
English, today
repentant

From Middle English repentant, from Old French repentant, present participle of repentir. by surface analysis, repent + -ant.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

repentant in the wild

The story begins with the prodigal son returning home, not repentant, but hungry, poor, and frustrated at having failed to achieve his goal.
Le retour de l'enfant prodigue
In the Middle Ages, the Cathar yellow cross was a distinguishing mark worn by repentant Cathars, who were ordered to wear it by the Roman Catholic Church.
Cathar yellow cross
The story details the difficulties of a repentant sinner's attempts to enter Heaven.
Repentance (story)
Gambling songs often present the situation from the point of view of a repentant, aging gambler, looking back on his wasted life.
Sporting song
The painting portrays a repentant Mary Magdalene bowed in penitent sorrow as she leaves behind her dissolute life, its trappings abandoned beside her.
Penitent Magdalene (Caravaggio)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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