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Definition of penance : 1. A means of repairing a sin committed, and obtaining pardon for it, consisting partly in the performance of expiatory rites, partly in voluntary submission to a punishment corresponding to the transgression. Penance is the fourth of seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church.
2. Pain; sorrow; suffering.
3. Repentance.
4. To impose penance; to punish.

Synonyms:

article of faith, confession, self-abasement, blasphemy, blasphemous, suffering, archangel, self-mortification, purgation, penitence, mortification, bless, expiation, repentance, sacrament, contrition, punishment, remorse, blessing, angelic, angel, absolution, blaspheme

recompensation, retribution, amends, rectification, redemption, atonement, satisfaction, compensation, restitution, redress, reparation, appeasement

Usage examples:

• Marjorie didn't look especially happy, but her mother said: Now, Mopsy, dear, don't go to school as if it were penance. - "Marjorie's Busy Days", Carolyn Wells.
• My sufferings, sufferings full of the thought of you, shall be the penance of a heart which will never be healed, which will bleed in solitude. - "The Country Doctor", Honore de Balzac.
• " Because," he answered, " it is well that I should do penance where I sinned, Miss Bonamy," he continued impetuously, yet in a low voice, and with his eyes on the ground. - "The New Rector", Stanley J. Weyman.