Word: short shrift Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From short + shrift (“act of going to or hearing a religious confession; confession to a priest”). Shrift is derived from Middle English shrift (“confession to a priest; act or instance of this; sacrament of penance; penance assigned by a priest; penitence, repentance; punishment for sin”) [and other forms], from Old English sċrift (“penance, shrift; something prescribed as punishment, penalty; one who passes sentence, a judge”), from sċrīfan (“of a priest: to prescribe absolution or penance; to pass judgment, ordain, prescribe; to appoint, decree”) (whence shrive), from Proto-Germanic *skrībaną (“to write”), from Latin scrībō (“to write”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreybʰ- (“to scratch, tear”). Pronunciation: /ˌʃɔːt ˈʃɹɪft/, /ˌʃɔɹt ˈʃɹɪft/ 1. A rushed sacrament of confession given to a prisoner who is to be executed very soon. Labels: countable, historical, uncountable Example: Diſpatch my Lo[rd] the Duke would be at dinner: / Make a ſhort ſhrift, he longs to ſee your head. Example: I pray you, tell my kind cousin, if he loves such companions, he had best keep them in his own estates; for here they are like to meet short shrift and a tight cord. 2. Speedy execution, usually without any proper determination of guilt. Labels: broadly, uncountable Example: "Here is a spy of the enemy, General," said the Sergeant. / "Make short shrift of him! We have no time for court-martials now." / "He's been condemned already, sir. He's the same man that was rescued from under the gallows by Commodore Stout's men." Example: Where actual disloyalty could be directly or constructively proved, the Crown made short shrift about surrenders, as in the case of those houses which were implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace: the monks were tied up to the nearest beam, the abbots condemned to the halter and the butcher's knife (on which [Thomas] Cromwell called "sorted" evidence), and the property at once confiscated. 3. A short interval of relief or time. Labels: broadly, countable Example: Short were his shrift in that debate, / That hour of fury and of fate, / If Lorn encounter'd Bruce! 4. Sometimes preceded by the: a quick dismissal or rejection, especially one which is impolite and undertaken without proper consideration. Labels: figuratively, uncountable Example: The bank gave me short shrift when I applied for a loan. Example: The proposal got short shrift. 5. Something dealt with or overcome quickly and without difficulty; something made short work of. Labels: dated, figuratively, uncountable Example: [L]ast week that scoundrel of a factor went to the hut with two of his men and seized the cow because they couldn't pay the rent—said his lordship advised him to give short shrift, since indulgence did not pay—that he himself was in want of money for his travels, and must get the rents of Uribol. Example: The moral sense of the world would have been shocked at the spectacle of a vulgar commonplace ruffian who, in a public railway saloon, publicly shot the chief magistrate of the United States, in the presence of a Cabinet minister and a number of spectators. Taken in the very fact, with his smoking pistol in hand, it would be thought that his shrift would be short. But short shrifts do not pay the gentlemen of the long robe, and, accordingly, day after day and week after week was the legal farce prolonged.