shrive

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The Word of the Day for September 4 is: 

shrive   \SHRYVE\   verb
     1 : to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to 
    *2 : to free from guilt 

Example sentence:
     Only the knowledge that her son had forgiven her could shrive her of the 
guilt she felt for leaving him behind when she fled the country all those years 
ago.

Did you know?
     We wouldn't want to give the history of "shrive" short shrift, so here's 
the whole story. It began when the Latin verb "scribere" (meaning "to write") 
found its way onto the tongues of certain Germanic peoples, who brought it to 
Britain in the early Middle Ages. Because it was often used for laying down 
directions or rules in writing, 8th-century Old English speakers used their 
form of the term, "scrifan," to mean "to prescribe or impose." The Church 
adopted "scrifan" to refer to the act of assigning penance to sinners and, 
later, to hearing confession and administering absolution. Today, the noun form 
of "shrive," "shrift," makes up half of "short shrift," a phrase meaning 
"little or no consideration." Originally, "short shrift" was the barely 
adequate time for confession before an execution.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.