confess

[Con*fessĀ·]

When you confess, you admit to doing something wrong. You might feel guilty about eating the entire platter of chocolate chip cookies and confess to your mom before she notices. If she presses charges, you would confess to the cookie crime.

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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.

Verb
admit, make a clean breast of; "She confessed that she had taken the money"

Verb
confess to God in the presence of a priest, as in the Catholic faith

Verb
confess to a punishable or reprehensible deed, usually under pressure


v. t.
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.

v. t.
To acknowledge faith in; to profess belief in.

v. t.
To admit as true; to assent to; to acknowledge, as after a previous doubt, denial, or concealment.

v. t.
To make known or acknowledge, as one's sins to a priest, in order to receive absolution; -- sometimes followed by the reflexive pronoun.

v. t.
To hear or receive such confession; -- said of a priest.

v. t.
To disclose or reveal, as an effect discloses its cause; to prove; to attest.

v. i.
To make confession; to disclose sins or faults, or the state of the conscience.

v. i.
To acknowledge; to admit; to concede.


Confess

Con*fess" , v. t. [imp. & p.p. Confessed ; p.pr. & vb.n. Confessing.] [F. confesser, fr. L. confessus, p.p. of confiteri to confess; con- + fateri to confess; akin to fari to speak. See 2d Ban, Fame.] 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.
I must confess I was most pleased with a beautiful prospect that none of them have mentioned.
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.
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.
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.
As I confess it needs must be.
As an actor confessed without rival to shine.
4. (Eccl.) (a) 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.
(b) 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.
5. To disclose or reveal, as an effect discloses its cause; to prove; to attest.
Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mold.
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.

Confess

Con*fess", v. i. 1. To make confession; to disclose sins or faults, or the state of the conscience.
Every tongue shall confess to God.
2. To acknowledge; to admit; to concede.
But since (And I confess with right) you think me bound.

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.

To make confession; to disclose sins or faults, or the state of the conscience.

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Usage Examples

Sadly, we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of delivering them from the guilt we create. We need to confess this and change our ways.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to themselves.

I confess that for fifteen years my efforts in education, and my hopes of success in establishing a system of national education, have always been associated with the idea of coupling the education of this country with the religious communities which exist.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holy of holies of Jewish time. It is that rarest of phenomena, a Jewish festival without food. Instead it is a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment when, collectively and repeatedly, we confess our sins and pray to be written into God's Book of Life.

As surely as I am the living God, everyone will kneel before me, and everyone will confess that I am God.

Misspelled Form

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Other Usage Examples

Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?

I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.

I'll confess right here that I secretly wish I'd have drawn a strip about a little boy with a fake tiger, going for adventures throughout the universe in spaceships of his imagination.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

I made some truly awful movies. 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.

I confess I am a romantic. I love romance, and I think it's really fun and delicious and some of my favorite films are love stories. I think that you just get a chance to fall in love with the characters so much and you get to explore their lives so deeply.

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