compunctious

Synonyms for compunctious

MOST RELEVANT

adjective. regretting, remorseful

adjective. regretful

adjective. shamed, sorrowful

adjective. remorseful

adjective. sad, sorry

Word Origin & History

c.1600, from stem of compunction + -ous. Related: Compunctiously; compunctiousness.

No compunctious visitings of conscience seem to have haunted her.

Miss Colishaw's grim indignation, Mrs. Joy's cool audacity, her own compunctious helplessness,—all were indicated in turn.

My firm resolution to hit my antagonist was now confirmed, and no compunctious visitings unnerved my arm.

The cattle tread down or masticate the fairest flowers without a single "compunctious visiting of nature."

At length a compunctious vision shoots across the mind of the truant composer.

But, amidst my present 'compunctious visitings,' I thought of atoning for my former rebellions by one heroic act of submission.

Unluckily, when these compunctious visitings seized me I was standing by a rostrum of heterodoxy.

All was not right at Blue Bluffs, they said; some escaping slave—perhaps the compunctious Vane himself, who knew?

Yet he describes himself as subject to compunctious visitations from that silent quarter.

Recollecting what his own method of bringing her round had been, his conscience gives him a compunctious stab.