indulgence

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French indulgence, or its source, Latin indulgentia.

noun

1. The act of indulging.
   As indulgence in several wives depended mainly on the length of a man's purse, the poor naturally contented themselves with monogamy. 1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 220
2. Tolerance.
3. The act of catering to someone's every desire.
4. A wish or whim satisfied.
   "In other words, the ONLY indulgences we'll be getting for a while is fixing your wardrobe. This means no new manga. No new games. Nothing. Get used to it." 2013, Jocelyn Samara D., Rain, volume 1, page 199
5. Something in which someone indulges.
6. An indulgent act; a favour granted; gratification.
   If all these gracious indulgences are without any effect on us, we must perish in our own folly. a. 1729, John Rogers, The Goodness of God a Motive to Repentance
7. (Roman Catholicism) A pardon or release from the expectation of punishment in purgatory, after the sinner has been granted absolution.
   To understand how indulgences were intended to work depends on linking together a number of assumptions about sin and the afterlife, each of which individually makes considerable sense. 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 555

verb

1. (transitive, Roman Catholicism) to provide with an indulgence