canossa
/K AH0 N OW1 S AH0/noun
- 1
A comune and castle town in the Province of Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, famed as the site where the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV did penance in 1077, standing three days bare-headed in the snow, in order to reverse his excommunication by Pope Gregory VII.
- 2
(figuratively) An act of humiliating repentance.
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