confessional
/kənˈfɛʃənəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.05 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
In the manner or style of a confession.
adj
Officially practicing a particular shared religion, as a state or organization; see confessionalism (sense 1).
noun
A small room where confession—the Sacrament of Penance—is performed in private with a priest.
noun
A confession.
noun
A filmed interview in which a cast member speaks directly into the camera commenting on the events of the episode.
Example Sentences
- "The studied reticence of the poems in quatrains is opposed to the more confessional aspects of the monologue."
- "confessional community"
- "The confessional's chief amusement has been seduction–in all the ages of the Church."
- "In one of the aisles there was an elaborately carved confessional box and I recognised the village priest in his heavy mountain boots and black cassock as he entered it and drew the dark velvet curtains behind him."
- "When a 35-year-old Bill Clinton, famously the nation’s youngest former governor, set out in 1982 to reclaim the job he had lost two years earlier, he began with a remarkable televised confessional. “My daddy never had to whip me twice for the same thing,” Mr. Clinton told Arkansans in a campaign commercial, acknowledging voters’ anger over his having raised a hated vehicle fee and vowing to listen better if they gave him another chance as governor."
- "These characters behave as crassly as they do in large part because producers of shows such as The Bachelor deprive them of all contact with the outside world ([…]) and ply them with alcohol, then goad them to unleash their petty grievances in filmed "confessionals"."
Etymology
From confession + -al.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: confessionnal
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kənˈfɛʃənəl/
- British English: /kənˈfɛʃənəl/