Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, creeping; growing prostrate along the ground, or horizontally beneath the surface, and rooting progressively.
  • In zoology, creeping, as an animalcule; specifically, of or pertaining to the Repentia.
  • To feel pain, sorrow, or regret for something one has done or left undone.
  • Especially, to experience such sorrow for sin as produces amendment of life; be grieved over one's past life, and seek forgiveness; be penitent. See repentance.
  • To do penance.
  • To change the mind or course of conduct in consequence of regret or dissatisfaction with something that is past.
  • To express sorrow for something past.
  • =Syn. 1–4. See repentance.
  • To remember or regard with contrition, compunction, or self-reproach; feel self-accusing pain or grief on account of: as, to repent rash words; to repent an injury done to a neighbor.
  • To be sorry for or on account of.
  • noun Repentance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Bot.) Prostrate and rooting; -- said of stems.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Same as Reptant.
  • intransitive verb To feel pain, sorrow, or regret, for what one has done or omitted to do.
  • intransitive verb To change the mind, or the course of conduct, on account of regret or dissatisfaction.
  • intransitive verb (Theol.) To be sorry for sin as morally evil, and to seek forgiveness; to cease to love and practice sin.
  • transitive verb To feel pain on account of; to remember with sorrow.
  • transitive verb To feel regret or sorrow; -- used reflexively.
  • transitive verb Archaic To cause to have sorrow or regret; -- used impersonally.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Creeping along the ground.
  • verb intransitive To feel pain, sorrow, or regret for what one has done or omitted to do; the cause for repenting may be indicated with "of".
  • verb theology, intransitive To be sorry for sin as morally evil, and to seek forgiveness; to cease to love and practice sin.
  • verb transitive To feel pain on account of; to remember with sorrow.
  • verb transitive To be sorry for, to regret.
  • verb archaic, transitive To cause to have sorrow or regret.
  • verb obsolete, reflexive To cause (oneself) to feel pain or regret.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb turn away from sin or do penitence
  • verb feel remorse for; feel sorry for; be contrite about

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin rēpō ("I creep").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French repentir, from re- + a late derivative of Latin poenitere ("be penitant"), alteration of Latin paenitere.

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