Penitence is the inner feeling — deep regret or remorse. Penance is the outer act — something done to make amends. A person can feel penitence without ever performing a penance, though the two often go together: the feeling comes first, the act follows.
The core difference
Penitence is the emotion of remorse, while penance is the action taken to atone for wrongdoing.
- penitence — deep regret or remorse for having done something wrong: His penitence was clear from the tears in his eyes as he apologised.
- penance — a voluntary act of self-punishment or atonement, or a religious ritual of confession and reparation: He did penance for years, quietly trying to make amends.
How to tell them apart
Both words trace back to the same Latin root, paenitentia, meaning "repentance," which is why they feel like two sides of one coin. The trick is to notice which side of the coin you mean: penitence sits inside a person, as a feeling; penance sits outside, as something a person does.
If you can replace the word with "remorse" or "regret," use penitence. If you can replace it with "an act of atonement" or "a punishment taken on," use penance. The mix-up shows up most often in religious or moral writing, where a person's penitence is described alongside the penance they perform.
