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Penitence is the feeling of being truly sorry after you have done something wrong, and wanting not to do it again. It is heavier than a quick "sorry". The word has an old, often church colour. Churches talk about penitence when someone turns away from a wrong. You can feel this without any church, but the word still sounds serious and a little old. In daily talk, people more often say they feel bad, or they talk about guilt or regret. Though actually, English has a close twin: penance. Penitence is the feeling inside. Penance is often the thing you do on the outside — extra prayers, making up for the harm, accepting a hard task. People mix these two. You will meet penitence in books, in church language, and in careful writing, not in a short message to a friend.
懺悔（指內心悔意；教會語境也常用悔罪、悔改）
組成From Middle English penitence, from Old French penitence, from Latin paenitentia ("repentance"), from paeniteō ("to regret, to repent"). Equivalent to penitent + -ence. Doublet of penance.
同家族的字
- penitentthe adjective, or the person who feels this
- penancea doublet from the same Latin source; now often the act you take on, not the feeling
- penitentialthe adjective: relating to penitence
- repentfrom the same Latin verb of regretting
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
penitencenoun
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The condition of being penitent; a feeling of regret or remorse for doing wrong or sinning.
- an assassin who misses his aim and flounders into penitence much as that discomfortable drama misses its point and stumbles into vacuity
- As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I cannot, even in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。