Word of the Day

: March 20, 2008

compunctious

adjective kum-PUNK-shus

What It Means

1 : arising from remorse or regret

2 : feeling remorse or regret

compunctious in Context

Emily's compunctious feelings eventually got the better of her, so she apologized to Sean for the cruel things she had said in the argument.

Did You Know?

William Shakespeare never had any compunction about coining or using new words, and "compunctious" debuted in Macbeth (1605). In that play, the murderous Lady Macbeth beseeches the spirits to "stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose...." Shakespeare formed the adjective from the noun "compunction," meaning "remorse," and the suffix "-ous," which is often used to create adjectives indicating that something or someone has or is full of a particular quality. "Compunction" came to English through Anglo-French from the Late Latin noun "compunctio," which in turn evolved from the Latin verb "compungere," meaning "to prick hard" or "to sting."