From Middle English indulgence, indulgens, from Middle French indulgence and its source, Latin indulgentia.

• IPA: /ɪnˈdʌl.d͡ʒəns/

indulgence

1. The act of indulging.
   • 1654, H[enry] Hammond, Of Fundamentals in a Notion Referring to Practise, London: […] J[ames] Flesher for Richard Royston, […], →OCLC ↗:

     will all they that either through indulgence to others or fondness to any sin in themselves, substitute for repentance any thing that is less than a sincere, uniform resolution of new obedience

2. Tolerance.
3. The act of catering to someone's every desire.
4. A wish or whim satisfied.
5. Something in which someone indulges.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC ↗, page 5 ↗:

     I made but one error—giving way to petulance in the earlier instance; that lost me the Prince of Conti. Temper is bourgeois indulgence, though I own to a predilection for it.

6. An indulgent act; a favour granted; gratification.
   • a. 1729, John Rogers, The Goodness of God a Motive to Repentance:

     If all these gracious indulgences are without any effect on us, we must perish in our own folly.

7. (Roman Catholicism) A pardon or release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory, after the sinner has been granted absolution.
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 555:

     To understand how indulgences were intended to work depends on linking together a number of assumptions about sin and the afterlife, each of which individually makes considerable sense.

• indulge
• indulgent

• French: indulgence
• German: Nachgiebigkeit, Nachsicht, Milde, Nachsichtigkeit
• Italian: vizio
• Portuguese: indulgência

• German: Duldsamkeit, Duldung
• Portuguese: indulgência
• Russian: снисхожде́ние

• German: Verwöhnen, Verwöhnung
• Russian: потака́ние

• German: Schwäche, Hobby
• Italian: vizio

• German: Gnade, Gnadenbezeigung, Gefälligkeit
• Portuguese: indulgência

• French: indulgence
• German: Ablass
• Italian: indulgenza
• Portuguese: indulgência, indulto
• Russian: индульге́нция
• Spanish: indulgencia

indulgence (indulgences, present participle indulgencing; simple past and past participle indulgenced)

1. (transitive, Roman Catholic Church) to provide with an indulgence