confessional

• IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛʃənəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

confession +‎ -al

confessional (comparative more confessional, superlative most confessional)

1. In the manner or style of a confession.
   • 1991, Manju Jain, A critical reading of the selected poems of T.S. Eliot, page 77:

     The studied reticence of the poems in quatrains is opposed to the more confessional aspects of the monologue.

2. Officially practicing a particular shared religion, as a state or organization; see confessionalism 1.

   confessional community

• interconfessional

From French confessionnal.

confessional (plural confessionals)

1. (Roman Catholicism) A small room where confession—the Sacrament of Penance—is performed in private with a priest.

   Synonym: confession booth

   • c. 1909, Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, Letter XI:

     The confessional's chief amusement has been seduction–in all the ages of the Church.

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 13, in Crime out of Mind‎:

     In one of the aisles there was an elaborately carved confessional box and I recognised the village priest in his heavy mountain boots and black cassock as he entered it and drew the dark velvet curtains behind him.

2. A confession.
   • 2015 April 15, Jonathan Martin, “For a Clinton, It’s Not Hard to Be Humble in an Effort to Regain Power”, in The New York Times‎:

     When a 35-year-old Bill Clinton, famously the nation’s youngest former governor, set out in 1982 to reclaim the job he had lost two years earlier, he began with a remarkable televised confessional.
     “My daddy never had to whip me twice for the same thing,” Mr. Clinton told Arkansans in a campaign commercial, acknowledging voters’ anger over his having raised a hated vehicle fee and vowing to listen better if they gave him another chance as governor.

3. (reality television) A filmed interview in which a cast member speaks directly into the camera commenting on the events of the episode.
   • 2004, Ms. Magazine‎, volume 14:

     These characters behave as crassly as they do in large part because producers of shows such as The Bachelor deprive them of all contact with the outside world ( […] ) and ply them with alcohol, then goad them to unleash their petty grievances in filmed "confessionals".

   • 2021, Doreen St. Félix, “"The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" Is Culturally Sensitive Trash”, in The New Yorker‎:

     We see Brooks seethe in a corner, and, in a cut to a confessional, he exaggerates the scene, saying, “I’m feeling really uncomfortable. Her vagina’s in my face.”

From confessió +‎ -al.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [kuɱ.fə.si.uˈnal]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [koɱ.fə.si.oˈnal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencian) [koɱ.fe.si.oˈnal]

confessional m or f (masculine and feminine plural confessionals)

1. confessional
2. confessionary

• confessar

• “confessional” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.