indulgence
Etymology

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

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ɪnˈdʌl.d͡ʒəns/
Noun

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.
Related terms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

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

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



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