(b) To hear or receive such confession; - - said of a priest.
He . . . heard mass, and the prince, his son, with him, and the most part of his company were confessed.
Ld.
Berners.
5. To disclose or reveal, as an effect discloses its cause; to prove; to attest.
Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mold.
Pope.
Syn. — Admit; grant; concede; avow; own; assent; recognize; prove; exhibit; attest. — To Confess, Acknowledge,
Avow. Acknowledge is opposed to conceal. We acknowledge what we feel must or ought to be made
known. (See Acknowledge.) Avow is opposed to withhold. We avow when we make an open and
public declaration, as against obloquy or opposition; as, to avow one's principles; to avow one's participation
in some act. Confess is opposed to deny. We confess (in the ordinary sense of the word) what we
feel to have been wrong; as, to confess one's errors or faults. We sometimes use confess and acknowledge
when there is no admission of our being in the wrong; as, this, I confess, is my opinion; I acknowledge
I have always thought so; but in these cases we mean simply to imply that others may perhaps think
us in the wrong, and hence we use the words by way of deference to their opinions. It was in this way
that the early Christians were led to use the Latin confiteor and confessio fidei to denote the public
declaration of their faith in Christianity; and hence the corresponding use in English of the verb confess
and the noun confession.
Confess
(Con*fess"), v. i.
1. To make confession; to disclose sins or faults, or the state of the conscience.
Every tongue shall confess to God.
Rom. xiv. 11.
2. To acknowledge; to admit; to concede.
But since
(And I confess with right) you think me bound.
Tennyson.
