From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Confession \Con*fes"sion\, noun [F. confession, L. confessio.]
1. Acknowledgment; avowal, especially in a matter pertaining to one's self; the admission of a debt, obligation, or crime.
With a crafty madness keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state. --Shak.
2. Acknowledgment of belief; profession of one's faith.
With the mouth confession is made unto salvation. --Rom. x. 10.
3. (Eccl.) The act of disclosing sins or faults to a priest in order to obtain sacramental absolution.
Auricular confession . . . or the private and special confession of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution. --Hallam.
4. A formulary 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.
5. (Law) An admission by a party to whom an act is imputed, in relation to such act. A judicial confession settles the issue to which it applies; an extrajudical confession may be explained or rebutted. --Wharton.
{Confession and avoidance} (Law), a mode of pleading in which the party confesses the facts as stated by his adversary, but alleges some new matter by way of avoiding the legal effect claimed for them. --Mozley & W.
{Confession of faith}, a formulary containing the articles of faith; a creed.
{General confession}, the confession of sins made by a number of persons in common, as in public prayer.
{Westminster Confession}. See {Westminster Assembly}, under {Assembly}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: an admission of misdeeds or faults
2: a written document acknowledging an offense and signed by the guilty party
3: (Roman Catholic Church) the act of a penitent disclosing his sinfulness before a priest in the sacrament of penance in the hope of absolution
4: a public declaration of your faith
5: a document that spells out the belief system of a given church (especially the Reformation churches of the 16th century)
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
69 Moby Thesaurus words for "confession": abject apology, acceptance, acknowledgment, adherents, admission, agape, allowance, apology, appreciation, asperges, aspersion, auricular confession, avowal, bar mitzvah, bas mitzvah, breast-beating, by-line, celebration, church, circumcision, citation, class, communion, concession, confession of faith, confirmation, contrition, credit line, declaration, declaration of faith, denomination, disciples, excuse, faith, followers, high celebration, incense, invocation, invocation of saints, ism, kiss of peace, lesser litany, litany, love feast, lustration, mea culpa, order, owning, owning up, pax, penitence, persuasion, processional, profession, reciting the rosary, recognition, reference, regrets, rite of confession, school, sect, shrift, signature, telling of beads, the confessional, the confessionary, trademark, tribute, unbosoming
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Confession (1) An open profession of faith (Luke 12:8). (2.) An acknowledment of sins to God (Lev. 16:21; Ezra 9:5-15; Dan. 9:3-12), and to a neighbour whom we have wronged (James 5:16; Matt. 18:15).
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