How to Use confessor in a Sentence

confessor

noun
  • Some of my younger coworkers, all men, want to turn me into mother confessor.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 16 Sep. 2019
  • The costumer-confessor and actress-penitent were in a state of hope.
    — New York Times, 4 May 2021
  • Is Pavel Datsyuk is hunkered down in a monastery with his personal confessor?
    — Chanel Stitt, Detroit Free Press, 18 June 2020
  • This is what the church does in its liturgical service and also in canonising those who are believed to be martyrs and confessors.
    — The Economist, 1 Feb. 2018
  • But everything that is said between the confessor and priest is confidential.
    — Corky Siemaszko, NBC news, 16 Apr. 2026
  • This is certainly true, but any confessor will tell you that doing better today does not absolve you from confessing past sins.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Those who were imprisoned for their faith but released – called confessors — were venerated by their communities in the same way.
    — Joanne M. Pierce, The Conversation, 25 Jan. 2023
  • If, for example, the penitent confesses from behind a screen, how can the confessor know for certain who is confessing?
    — Rob Taylor and, WSJ, 3 Aug. 2018
  • Then the entire workshop gathered round and staged a mock trial, complete with guards, a confessor, and a public executioner.
    — Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post, 23 June 2017
  • Going public has turned Anderson into something of a confessor.
    — Nora Krug, chicagotribune.com, 12 June 2018
  • What Beyoncé shared could be enjoyed, even embraced, but not entered by anyone except the confessor herself and her mate.
    — Ann Powers, Billboard, 7 Sep. 2017
  • With his uncombed mop of hair and sneering Queens accent, Breslin was a confessor and town crier and sometimes seemed like a character right out of his own work.
    — Verena Dobnik, The Denver Post, 19 Mar. 2017
  • Whitman has become a nurse, companion and confessor to these vulnerable soldiers.
    — Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2017
  • This is Benny’s domain, where over 23 years he’s served as confidant and confessor for the city’s most elite — and the people who want to feel that way for just one night.
    — Claire Ballor, Dallas News, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Specifically, the nuns pointed a finger at Urbain Grandier—a local priest and their confessor.
    — Amelia Soth, JSTOR Daily, 31 Oct. 2024
  • But for three decades her music has also served as a sort of open-source support network, with Blige at the center as therapist and confessor, self-esteem coach and cold-truth teller.
    — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Her closeness to a man, her confessor Father Van Exem, was questioned by her congregation.
    — Marta Balaga, Variety, 28 Aug. 2025
  • Take for example this delicious little bit from matriarch Trudy, salon owner, hair washer and chief confessor to all who walk through her doors with their problems.
    — Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune, 17 June 2022
  • These are just a few of the secrets written on postcards by anonymous confessors and currently on view at the San Diego Museum of Man.
    — Karla Peterson, sandiegouniontribune.com, 9 July 2018
  • Even if absolution is denied, though, the exchange between penitent and confessor is to remain confidential.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Aug. 2019
  • Both trace their authority to the primacy of the word; both offer uplift to the common man, acting as his paternalistic confessor and instructor.
    — Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 8 Oct. 2015
  • In the cases of Grassi and Zanchetta, Bergoglio was a confessor to both men, suggesting he may have been swayed in his judgment by his role as their spiritual father.
    — The Salt Lake Tribune, 18 Nov. 2020
  • Instead, the central question and driving force is how Aggie and Brian will lure Nile out of the walled fortress afforded by wealth and into the trap of spilling his guts to a confessor.
    — Alison Herman, Variety, 13 Nov. 2025
  • The automatic consequence for a confessor who breaks the seal of confession is excommunication – that is, banned, at least temporarily, from the sacraments of the church.
    — Timothy Gabrielli, The Conversation, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Forcing priests to divulge confessions, while exempting all manner of secular confessors, is rank religious discrimination.
    — Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 6 May 2025
  • In the standard form of the Catholic sacrament today, the communal element is reduced but not lost, since the confessor stands in for the presence of Christ and for the presence of the wider Christian community.
    — Timothy Gabrielli, The Conversation, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The reason for his laughter is nearly always the documentary’s subject, Robert Lloyd, who takes palpable pleasure in causing his friend and (for the purposes of the film) confessor to absolutely lose it.
    — Mark O’Connell, The New York Review of Books, 23 Mar. 2021
  • But it’s also filled with intimacy, as Nas, a primo confessor of the Tik Tok generation, gives interviews while in a towel, or while lying on the ground, with existential one-liners just pouring out of him.
    — Jada Yuan, Washington Post, 11 Sep. 2023
  • The same thing could be witnessed, in decades past, on more secular (but hardly less ceremonial) television programs like The Oprah Winfrey Show, where talk show luminaries act as confessors to erring movie stars.
    — Ian Buruma, Harper's Magazine, 2 June 2023
  • During the next five years, Isabella's confessor, the bishop Hernando de Talavera, led an ongoing due-diligence investigation, chairing a panel of industry experts who reviewed Columbus' plan.
    — Chip Bayers, WIRED, 1 Jan. 2002

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'confessor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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