compunctious

Exhibiting compunctions, scruples, feelings of guilt.

Adjective

  1. Exhibiting compunctions, scruples, feelings of guilt.
    • Come you Spirits, That tend on mortall thoughts, vnſex me here, And fill me from the Crowne to the Toe, top-full Of direſt Crueltie: make thick my blood, Stop vp th’acceſſe, and paſſage to Remorſe, That no compunctious...
    • Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thoroughbred metaphysician. It comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked spirit than to the frailty and passion of a man. It is like that of the principle of...

Origin

From the stem of compunction + -ous; compare factious. Apparently taken up in modern use from Macbeth by William Shakespeare (see quotation).

Forms

more compunctious most compunctious compunctuous

Derived

compunctiously compunctiousness