indulgence

English

Alternative forms

• indulgency (dated)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈdʌl.d͡ʒəns/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: in‧dul‧gence

Noun

indulgence (countable and uncountable, plural indulgences)

1. The act of indulging.
   • 1654, H[enry] Hammond, Of Fundamentals in a Notion Referring to Practise, London: J 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

   • 1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization‎, page 220:

     As indulgence in several wives depended mainly on the length of a man's purse, the poor naturally contented themselves with monogamy.

2. Tolerance.
3. The act of catering to someone's every desire.
4. A wish or whim satisfied.
   • 2013, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain, volume 1, →ISBN, page 199:

     "In other words, the ONLY indulgences we'll be getting for a while is fixing your wardrobe. This means no new manga. No new games. Nothing. Get used to it."

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.

Hyponyms

• (pardon from purgatory): plenary indulgence, partial indulgence

Derived terms

• self-indulgence

Related terms

• indulge
• indulgent

Translations

Verb

indulgence (third-person singular simple present indulgences, present participle indulgencing, simple past and past participle indulgenced)

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

Translations

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.dyl.ʒɑ̃s/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

indulgence f (plural indulgences)

1. leniency, clemency
2. (Roman Catholicism) indulgence

Further reading

• “indulgence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.