Fess vs Confess - What's the difference?
fess | confess |
To confess; to admit.
(heraldiccharge) A horizontal band across the middle of the shield.
* 1892 , Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor’, Norton 2005 p.294:
* 2009 , Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall , Fourth Estate 2010, p. 420:
(senseid) To admit to the truth, particularly in the context of sins or crimes committed.
* Shakespeare
* Milton
* Addison
To acknowledge faith in; to profess belief in.
* Bible, Matthew x. 32
* Bible, Acts xxiii. 8
(religion) To unburden (oneself) of sins to a priest, in order to receive absolution.
* Addison
(religion) To hear or receive such a confession of sins from.
* Ld. Berners
(senseid) To disclose or reveal.
* Alexander Pope
Confess is a derived term of fess.
As verbs the difference between fess and confess
is that fess is to confess; to admit while confess is (to admit to the truth) To admit to the truth, particularly in the context of sins or crimes committed.As a noun fess
is a horizontal band across the middle of the shield.fess
English
Etymology 1
From (confess), by shorteningVerb
(es)Derived terms
* fess up English clippingsEtymology 2
From (etyl)Alternative forms
* fesseNoun
(es)- Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral—Hum! Arms: Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable.
- The space where the arms of Wolsey used to be is being repainted with his own newly granted arms: azure, on a fess between three lions rampant or, a rose gules, barbed vert, between two Cornish choughs proper .
confess
English
Verb
(es)- People confess to anything under torture.
- I never gave it him. Send for him hither, / And let him confess a truth.
- And there confess / Humbly our faults, and pardon beg.
- I must confess I was most pleased with a beautiful prospect that none of them have mentioned.
- Whosoever, therefore, shall confess' me before men, him will I ' confess , also, before my Father which is in heaven.
- For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.
- Our beautiful votary took an opportunity of confessing herself to this celebrated father.
- He heard mass, and the prince, his son, with him, and the most part of his company were confessed .
- Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mould.