penitent

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Feeling or expressing remorse for one's misdeeds or sins.
2. n. One who is penitent.
3. n. A person performing penance under the direction of a confessor.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Sorry for sin or for offense committed; contrite; troubled by a sense of guilt and resolved on amendment; repentant.
2. Doing penance; suffering.
3. n. One who repents, or is sorry for sin, transgression, or offending; a contrite or repentant person.
4. n. Eccles., one who makes confession of sin and undergoes, under priestly direction, the ecclesiastical discipline prescribed for its absolution. In the early church the penitents formed a distinct class, which included only those under ecclesiastical censure, admitted to do public penance under the direction of the church. Only marked lapses were recognized, but these were punished with long and severe penalties, sometimes lasting many years. The privilege of penance was usually granted but once. The penitents were classified in four grades—mourners, hearers, kneelers, and standers or consistentes. Owing to the change of circumstances and the relaxation of discipline, public confession gradually ceased to be required, but private confession of mortal sins has been considered necessary in the Roman Catholic Church and of divine obligation. The Greek Church still requires confession for all grave sins, but its discipline is not so strict as that of the Roman Church. See penance.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Feeling pain or sorrow on account of sins or offenses; repentant; contrite; sincerely affected by a sense of guilt, and resolved on amendment of life.
2. adj. Doing penance.
3. n. One who repents of sin; one sorrowful on account of his or her transgressions.
4. n. One under church censure, but admitted to penance; one undergoing penance.
5. n. One under the direction of a confessor.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Feeling pain or sorrow on account of sins or offenses; repentant; contrite; sincerely affected by a sense of guilt, and resolved on amendment of life.
2. adj. obsolete Doing penance.
3. n. One who repents of sin; one sorrowful on account of his transgressions.
4. n. One under church censure, but admitted to penance; one undergoing penance.
5. n. One under the direction of a confessor.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds
2. n. (Roman Catholic Church) a person who repents for wrongdoing (a Roman Catholic may be admitted to penance under the direction of a confessor)