Sin, n.
 1. Transgression of the law of God; disobedience of the divine command; any violation of God's will, either in purpose or conduct; moral deficiency in the character; iniquity; as, sins of omission and sins of commission.
    Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.   --John viii. 34.
    Sin is the transgression of the law.   --1 John iii. 4.
 I think 't no sin.
 To cozen him that would unjustly win.   --Shak.
 Enthralled
 By sin to foul, exorbitant desires.   --Milton.
 2. An offense, in general; a violation of propriety; a misdemeanor; as, a sin against good manners.
    I grant that poetry's a crying sin.   --Pope.
 3. A sin offering; a sacrifice for sin.
    He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.   --2 Cor. v. 21.
 4. An embodiment of sin; a very wicked person. [R.]
 Thy ambition,
 Thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land
 Of noble Buckingham.   --Shak.
 Note: ☞ Sin is used in the formation of some compound words of obvious signification; as, sin-born; sin-bred, sin-oppressed, sin-polluted, and the like.
 Actual sin, Canonical sins, Original sin, Venial sin. See under Actual, Canonical, etc.
 Deadly sins, or Mortal sins R. C. Ch., willful and deliberate transgressions, which take away divine grace; -- in distinction from vental sins. The seven deadly sins are pride, covetousness, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and sloth.
 Sin eater, a man who (according to a former practice in England) for a small gratuity ate a piece of bread laid on the chest of a dead person, whereby he was supposed to have taken the sins of the dead person upon himself.
 Sin offering, a sacrifice for sin; something offered as an expiation for sin.
 Syn: -- Iniquity; wickedness; wrong. See Crime.


 ca·non·ic ca·non·ic·al a.  Of or pertaining to a canon; established by, or according to, a canon or canons.  “The oath of canonical obedience.”
 Canonical books, or Canonical Scriptures, those books which are declared by the canons of the church to be of divine inspiration; -- called collectively the canon. The Roman Catholic Church holds as canonical several books which Protestants reject as apocryphal.
 Canonical epistles, an appellation given to the epistles called also general or catholic. See Catholic epistles, under Canholic.
 Canonical form Math., the simples or most symmetrical form to which all functions of the same class can be reduced without lose of generality.
 Canonical hours, certain stated times of the day, fixed by ecclesiastical laws, and appropriated to the offices of prayer and devotion; also, certain portions of the Breviary, to be used at stated hours of the day. In England, this name is also given to the hours from 8 a. m. to 3 p. m. (formerly 8 a. m. to 12 m.) before and after which marriage can not be legally performed in any parish church.
 Canonical letters, letters of several kinds, formerly given by a bishop to traveling clergymen or laymen, to show that they were entitled to receive the communion, and to distinguish them from heretics.
 Canonical life, the method or rule of living prescribed by the ancient clergy who lived in community; a course of living prescribed for the clergy, less rigid than the monastic, and more restrained that the secular.
 Canonical obedience, submission to the canons of a church, especially the submission of the inferior clergy to their bishops, and of other religious orders to their superiors.
 Canonical punishments, such as the church may inflict, as excommunication, degradation, penance, etc.
 Canonical sins Anc. Church., those for which capital punishment or public penance decreed by the canon was inflicted, as idolatry, murder, adultery, heresy.

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