compunction

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Oh, I have been such a fool Joan's face was quivering, and so deep a compunction was audible in her voice, so earnest a prayer was to be read in her troubled eyes, that Miranda's doubt and anxiety were doubled I don't know what I shall do, if you don't help me," Joan said miserably as she let go of Miranda.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt. See Synonyms at penitence.
  2. noun A sting of conscience or a pang of doubt aroused by wrongdoing or the prospect of wrongdoing. See Synonyms at qualm.

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Examples (50)

  • He drank wine without compunction, and freely cursed the mollahs, who promised him a seat in the regions below for holding the injunctions of the Prophet so cheap. —  The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
  • Oh, I have been such a fool Joan's face was quivering, and so deep a compunction was audible in her voice, so earnest a prayer was to be read in her troubled eyes, that Miranda's doubt and anxiety were doubled I don't know what I shall do, if you don't help me," Joan said miserably as she let go of Miranda. —  The Summons
  • Kupelweiser, though the teacher of Steinle was considerably inferior to him in drawing--that firmness and elegance of outline, that harmony of composition, that piety, that genuine compunction which is dominant in the faces of the saints--that is Steinle, the purest Steinle, undoubted Steinle, whose collection of cartoons in Frankfort Was Steinle, for I do not recollect, pre-Raphaelite?" —  The Argonauts
  • Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a dream: "You can't go, Matt! —  Ethan Frome
  • I affected great compunction, and as I stepped into the boat I said soberly: —  'Twixt Land and Sea
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English compunccioun, from Old French componction, from Late Latin compūnctiō, compūnctiōn-, puncture, sting of conscience, from Latin compūnctus, past participle of compungere, to sting : com-, intensive pref.; see com- + pungere, to prick; see peuk- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = French componction = Spanish compuncion = Portuguese compuncção = Italian compunzione, from Late Latin compunctio(n-), from Latin compungere, past participle compunctus, prick, sting: see compunct.
 

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/kəmˈpəŋkʃən/
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