DictionaryAI

confess

verb
kuhn-FES/kənˈfɛs/

Formsconfesses, confessing, confessed

6 meanings of confess

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To admit the truth, especially about a sin or crime one has committed.

    The defendant refused to confess despite the mounting evidence.

    She confessed her mistake to the whole team without making excuses.

    Similaradmit, acknowledge, own, concede

    Oppositedeny, conceal, disavow

    Note

    The admitting sense carries the word's history. Latin cōnfiteor, from con- plus fateor, 'I admit', reached English through Old French and pushed out the native Middle English andetten. It works with or without an object. Without one, it takes to plus a noun or -ing form (confess to spray-painting). With one, it takes a that-clause or a direct object, as when Milton's penitents 'confess / Humbly our faults'.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To disclose or reveal something, especially a feeling or fact previously kept private.

    He confessed a deep admiration for his rival's early work.

    I must confess my complete ignorance of the subject.

    Similaradmit, reveal, disclose, acknowledge, divulge

    Oppositeconceal, hide, deny, suppress

    Note

    The subject need not be a person at all. In Pope's Odyssey of 1725, 'tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould.' By growing, the trees reveal how rich the soil is. In this literary use, confess means to show something through its effects, with no guilt and no speaker. Closer to everyday speech, it gives the mild hedge I must confess.

  3. 3
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To acknowledge one's sins to God or to a priest in order to be granted absolution.

    She knelt to confess her sins before the priest.

    Devout parishioners confess regularly throughout the penitential season.

    Note

    A word of religious practice that can turn reflexive. In 1710, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele write of a woman 'confessing herself to this celebrated father.' Here the person makes the confession and the priest is introduced with to. The other pattern names the sins as the object, as in the King James Bible's 'If we confesse our sinnes.'

  4. 4
    verbtransitive
    To acknowledge faith in or openly profess belief in a doctrine or deity.

    The martyrs confessed Christ even under torture.

    Converts publicly confess their new faith during the ceremony.

    Similarprofess, proclaim, declare, affirm, avow

    Oppositedeny, renounce, recant, abjure

    Note

    Here the object is a belief or a person, not a fault. The King James Bible of 1611 has 'whosoever shall confess me before men,' and says the Pharisees 'confess both' angel and spirit. Nothing is being owned up to; something is being declared. In this use confess sits close to profess, and unlike the admitting sense it carries no suggestion of guilt.

  5. 5
    verbtransitive
    To hear and receive a penitent's confession of sins, as a priest does in the sacrament of penance.

    Father Ramirez confessed the parishioners before the holy day.

    Only an ordained priest may confess the faithful in this tradition.

    Note

    The confessor's side of the exchange, and the grammar flips: the object is the penitent, not the sins. In W. K. Kelly's 1867 Decameron, a jealous husband disguised as a priest 'confesses his wife.' The passive reads the same way. In Lord Berners' Froissart's Chronicles, the prince's company 'were confessed,' meaning a priest had heard them. Compare the penitent's own confessing.

  6. 6
    verbtransitive or intransitive
    To openly declare one's romantic feelings or love for another person.

    In the final episode, the hero confesses to his longtime crush.

    She gathered her courage to confess her feelings at the dance.

    Similardeclare, profess, reveal, admit

    Oppositehide, conceal, suppress

    Note

    A usage that belongs chiefly to Japanese media and English writing about it. It usually appears without an object, with to marking the beloved: she finally confessed to him. Elsewhere in English, the bare verb is likely to be heard as admitting a wrongdoing. Outside that context, the safer phrasing is to confess one's feelings.

Practice

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Origin

From Middle English confessen, borrowed through Anglo-Norman and Old French confesser, from Latin confessus, the past participle of cōnfiteor ("I confess, I admit"), formed from con- plus fateor ("I admit"). It displaced the older Middle English andetten and is a doublet of confiteor.