confession

The open admittance of having done something (especially something bad).

Without the real murderer's confession, an innocent person could be jailed.

With a crafty madness keeps aloof, / When we would bring him on to some confession / Of his true state.

A formal document providing such an admission.

He forced me to sign a confession!

Both the basic idea of confession, and the techniques devised by Yezhov for extracting them, however, were to receive significant employment in Asia in the 1950s. The Chinese accused the Americans of waging bacteriological warfare in Korea. The evidence they produced consisted of feathers, insects, clams, rats, and other things riddled with germs and allegedly dropped from American planes. Such evidence was not, on the face of it, very convincing - though even this was accepted by one type of Westerner. To fortify their case, the Chinese resorted to confessions, extracted from American pilots.

The disclosure of one's sins to a priest for absolution. In the Roman Catholic Church, it is now also termed the sacrament of reconciliation.

I went to confession and now I feel much better about what I had done.

Hauing diſpleaſ'd my Father, to Lawrence Cell, / To make confeſſion, and to be abſolu'd.

Acknowledgment of belief; profession of one's faith.

With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

A formula in which the articles of faith are comprised; a creed to be assented to or signed, as a preliminary to admission to membership of a church; a confession of faith.