Canossa

C3A1N1O1S1S1A1
/kəˈnɒsə/

proper noun

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.

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Meanings

proper 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.
noun
  1. figurativelyAn act of humiliating repentance.

    No statement was issued on this meeting, but the world deduced that Bethlen had won all along the line, for on the 14th Gömbös read out on the wireless a declaration which was hailed as “a veritable Canossa.”

    1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 126

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cassano
Cite this entry
APA

Canossa. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Canossa

MLA

“Canossa.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Canossa. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Canossa,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Canossa.

Source: Canossa on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.