Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Change to a better frame of mind; repentance. The term is never used for that regret of a vicious man at letting pass an opportunity of vice or crime which is sometimes called
repentance .
Wiktionary
- n. wisdom from experience
- n. repentance
- n. recognition of a past mistake and the desire to improve in the future
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. rare Wisdom derived from severe experience; hence, repentance.
Examples
“The medieval legislation, both ecclesiastical and secular, clearly distinguished between the punishment to be inflicted for the crime of apostasy and the means of instruction to be used in order to bring about the resipiscence of the apostate.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery
“In fact the long list of heresiarchs contains the name of only one who came to resipiscence: Berengarius.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7: Gregory XII-Infallability
“Endless stories could be keyed or geared on to different parts of the main legend: there might be a Tristan-saga, a Palomides-saga, a Gawain-saga, episodes of Balin or of Beaumains, incidents of the fate of the damsel of Astolat or the resipiscence of Geraint.”
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II)
“It was the object of the Inquisition that such people should not indeed be spared, but should not perish without a trial and without opportunity of resipiscence, so that they might save their souls if not their lives.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘resipiscence’.
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Additional 250 Spelling Words
Words for the diehard intermediate and advanced spellers
facetiae, sagittary, anthophilous, hydromancy, pandect, carillonneur, tabbouleh, litterateur, windgall, pinguid, tressure, moderne and 238 more...
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phrontistery-r
from phrontistery.info
rya, rutilant, ruthful, rutherford, ruth, rusticity, rusticate, Russophobia, Russophile, russet, russel, rushlight and 514 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. II
cicurate, circumforaneous, codger, comiconomenclaturist, constable, contradistinction, contraindicated, counterpane, coxcomb, decalcomania, decanal, decoction and 307 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Becoming Words
inchoateness
effervescent, albescent, concrescence, fervescent, frondescent, suffrutescent, violescent, viridescent, resipiscence, rufescent, sonorescent, tenebrescence and 131 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Metaflip
Blasted binaries, background pattern inversions, and subtlety awareness.
apophenia, fissiparous, doppelganger, intertextuality, presque vu, unsung, dittology, enantiodromia, pareidolia, silhouette, rorschach, galanty and 151 more...
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Foyle's Philavery
A selection from Christopher Foyle's book, Foyle's Philavery: A Treasury of Unusual Words, which I was delighted to learn about here.
abligurition, arcifinious, batterfang, bottomry, broggle, brool, cacoepy, cark, dangleation, dasyphyllous, dentiloquy, deglute and 93 more...
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Limiter's Words
abecedary, deracinate, cucurbitaceous, onomantic, equipollence, metempsychosis, musaceous, nutational, preterite, analepsis, ravelin, hypergolic and 16 more...
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Missed words
Words I missed when practicing for the Spelling Bee
seicento, gnomon, clepsydra, detent, coccolithophore, gonyaulax, quoits, lamellibranch, alliteration, innocuous, saboteur, affenpinscher and 79 more...
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Lispers' Nemeses
ascesis, specificities, susurrus, resipiscence, isthmus, abscissin, faithbook, phosphorescence, sassafrass, psithurism, phthisical, cissy and 42 more...
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word set11
slipstreaming, derailleur, sapwood, obovate, wickerwork, rupestrine, orthographical, fructified, dynamometer, stolidity, shadow puppeting, hyperpolyglot and 63 more...
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Working List
Words that I put on Wordie for easy looking-up.
crescive, dyscalculia, farrago, geophagy, morigeration, onomastics, parvenuism, philippic, prairillon, resipiscence, roscian, schwarmerei and 9 more...
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R
ramify, recondite, redoubtable, refusenik, revet, revetment, rodomontade, reliquary, rugose, recherché, retrodict, roi fainéant and 22 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for resipiscence.

reesetee You're right, palooka. I feel resipiscence about not having used this word more often. ;-) Oct 4, 2007
palooka Beautiful word and fun to say. I'd love to see it used more often. Oct 4, 2007
reesetee Recognition of past mistakes and desire to do better in future. "It is derived from Latin resipiscere which means 'to recover one's senses,' and is a useful term for any member of the business community to remember." (From Foyle's Philavery: A Treasury of Unusual Words, by Christopher Foyle.)
Oct 3, 2007