indulgence
verbEtymology From Middle English indulgence, indulgens, from Middle French indulgence and its source, Latin indulgentia.
1
Catholicism, Christianity, Roman Catholicism To provide with an indulgence.
indulgence
noun/ɪnˈdʌl.d͡ʒəns/
Etymology From Middle English indulgence, indulgens, from Middle French indulgence and its source, Latin indulgentia.
7 senses
1
The act of indulging.
- 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 obedience1654, H[enry] Hammond, Of Fundamentals in a Notion Referring to Practise, London: […] J[ames] Flesher for Richard Royston, […], →OCLC:
- As indulgence in several wives depended mainly on the length of a man's purse, the poor naturally contented themselves with monogamy.1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 220:
2
Tolerance.
3
The act of catering to someone's every desire.
4
A wish or whim satisfied.
- "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."2013, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain, volume 1, →ISBN, page 199:
5
Something in which someone indulges.
- 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.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 5:
6
An indulgent act; a favour granted; gratification.
- If all these gracious indulgences are without any effect on us, we must perish in our own folly.a. 1729, John Rogers, The Goodness of God a Motive to Repentance:
7
Catholicism, Christianity, Roman Catholicism A pardon or release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory, after the sinner has been granted absolution.
- 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.2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 555: