Guilt

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɡɪlt/

Definitions

1. A feeling of self-blame or shame for having done something wrong or harmful, or the fact of having committed a crime or offense
2. The experience of feeling responsible or remorseful for an error or offense
3. A state of emotional discomfort caused by awareness of having caused harm or violated rules

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "guilt" is that its ancestor, Old English "gylt", originally meant something far more concrete and legal than remorse: a fault, a crime, or an offense that incurred a penalty. The feeling of having done wrong came later, as the word shifted from the act itself to the state of the person who had committed it. Its origins are murky. Scholars have proposed a link to the Old English verb "ġieldan", meaning "to pay, requite, or punish", which gave us "yield". That connection would be attractive, since a guilty party in early Germanic thinking was someone who owed a payment. However, the sounds do not line up neatly with related continental forms, such as the German "Gülte" (a debt or fee), so the link remains uncertain. The word also produced a verb. Middle English "gilten" came from Old English "gyltan", meaning "to commit sin" or "to be guilty", built directly on the same noun. Both the noun and verb trace back to the Old English "gylt" and show the word's older sense of an offense that demands answer.

Synonyms: remorse, shame, regret, culpability, blame

Antonyms: innocence, blamelessness, virtue, purity, justification