Confessor

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /kÉ™nˈfÉ›sÉ™/
• Rhymes: -É›sÉ™(ɹ)

Alternative forms

• confessour obsolete

Origin

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

Full definition of confessor

Noun

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