confessor

English

Alternative forms

• confessour (obsolete)

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman confessour, and its source, Latin confessor, from cōnfitērī, present active infinitive of cōnfiteor (“confess, admit, acknowledge”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛsə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛsɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɛsə(ɹ)

Noun

confessor (plural confessors)

1. One who confesses faith in Christianity in the face of persecution, but who is not martyred.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 174:

     Confessors provided the troubled Church with an alternative sort of authority based on their sufferings, particularly when arguments began about how and how much to forgive those Christians who had given way to imperial orders – the so-called ‘lapsed’.

2. One who confesses to having done something wrong.
3. (Roman Catholicism) A priest who hears confession and then gives absolution

Translations

one who confesses

• Bulgarian: изповядващ се (izpovjadvašt se)
• Greek: ομολογητής (el) m (omologitís)

• Irish: admhálaí m
• Persian: خستو‏‎ (fa) (xostu)

one who confesses faith in Christianity

• Czech: vyznavač (cs)
• Dutch: belijder m
• Finnish: tunnustaja (fi)
• German: Bekenner m

• Greek: ομολογητής (el) m (omologitís)
• Irish: dearbhóir m, coinfeasóir m
• Portuguese: confessor (pt) m

priest who hears confession

• Bulgarian: изповедник m (izpovednik)
• Czech: zpovědník m
• Danish: skriftefader c
• Dutch: biechtvader (nl) m
• French: confesseur (fr) m
• German: Beichtvater (de) m
• Greek: πνευματικός (el) m (pnevmatikós)

• Irish: athair faoistine m, oide faoistine m
• Polish: spowiednik (pl) m
• Portuguese: confessor (pt) m
• Russian: испове́дник (ru) m (ispovédnik)
• Spanish: confesante m, f
• Swedish: biktfader c
• Welsh: periglor m

References

Beccari, C. (1908) The Catholic Encyclopedia^[1], New York: Robert Appleton Company, Confessor

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Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /konˈfes.sor/, [kõːˈfɛs.sɔr]

Noun

cōnfessor m (genitive cōnfessōris); third declension

1. confessor of the Christian faith
2. martyr

Inflection

Third declension.

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	cōnfessor	cōnfessōrēs
genitive	cōnfessōris	cōnfessōrum
dative	cōnfessōrī	cōnfessōribus
accusative	cōnfessōrem	cōnfessōrēs
ablative	cōnfessōre	cōnfessōribus
vocative	cōnfessor	cōnfessōrēs

References

• confessor in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• du Cange, Charles (1883), “confessor”, in G. A. Louis Henschel, Pierre Carpentier, Léopold Favre, editors, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (in Latin), Niort: L. Favre

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Portuguese

Noun

confessor m (plural confessores, feminine confessora, feminine plural confessoras)

1. (religion) confessor (one who confesses faith in a religion, especially Christianity)
2. (Roman Catholicism) confessor (priest who hears confession)

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Spanish

Noun

confessor m (plural confessores)

1. Obsolete spelling of confesor