[In sense 2 a. F. confessional = It. confessionale, med.L. confessiōnāle (neuter of confessiōnāl-is adj.), quoted by Du Cange in the sense ‘sacrum pænitentiæ tribunal’ in 1563. Sense 1 is app. a distinct subst. use of the adj.]
† 1. A due for hearing or giving permission to hear confession. Obs.
1596. in Foxe, A. & M., Hen. VII. Cases Papal, 728. What should I speake here of my dailie reuenues, of my first fruites, annates, palles, indulgences, buls, confessionals, and such like, which come to no small masse of money.
2. A desk, stall, cabinet, box, or space, in which the priest sits to hear confessions in a Roman Catholic church.
1727. Chambers, Cycl., Confessional is also used in the Romish church for a little box or desk in the church, where the confessor takes the confessions of the penitents.
1740. Warburton, Div. Legat., IV. iv. Wks. 1811, IV. 118. I [Acosta] have seen an Indian bring to the confessional a confession of all his sins written … by picture and characters.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872), I. 7. A confessional … a little oaken structure about as big as a sentry-box with a closed part for the priest to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at.
b. Taken typically for the practice of confession, with its concomitants.
1816. Byron, Siege Cor., iii. More constant at confessional, More rare at masque and festival.
1862. Goulburn, Pers. Relig., i. (1873), 7. Before the Reformation, the Confessional existed as a living power in the Church.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 126. The clergy had the pulpit and the confessional, and their enemies had the press.
c. attrib., as confessional-box, -chair, -stall.
1792. Archæologia, 261. Confessional chairs … probably always were of wood.
1840. Clough, Amours de Voy., I. 109. Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures.
1866. D. G. Mitchell, Doctor Johns, II. lxiii. 260. Some Rabelais head of a priest in the confessional-stall leers at him with mockery.
† 3. = CONFESSION 8, CONFESSIONARY 2. Obs.
1704. Addison, Italy (J.). In one of the churches I saw a pulpit and confessional, very finely inlaid with lapis-lazuli.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Confessional, or Confessionary, in church-history, a place in churches, usually under the main altar, wherein were deposited the bodies of deceas’d saints, martyrs, and confessors.
