Definition of "shrift"

shrift

/ʃɹɪft/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural shrifts
1. The act of going to or hearing a religious confession.
  Quotations
  For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, / And seldom felt she any hunger-pain; [...]
  1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], stanza LIX, page 78
2. Confession to a priest.
3. (obsolete) Forgiveness given by a priest after confession; remission.
  Quotations
  [Friar:] Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. / Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
  c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)