Sample sentences for COMPUNCTION

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Definition

guilt for a misdeed; or a feeling that it would be wrong to do something

While most developed nations recognize the embargo, China ignores it without compunction.

compunction = a feeling of deep regret (usually for some misdeed)

This man has, I repeat, no place in a community whose basic principles he flouts without compunction.
Albert Camus -- The Stranger

compunction = regret or guilt

Yet the girl felt nothing for her mistress, no compunction, but slept and made love with Eurymakhos.
Homer -- The Odyssey

compunction = guilt or feeling of regret

Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out, as if he saw her drowning in a dream:
Edith Wharton -- Ethan Frome

compunction = a feeling of deep regret and guilt

You say you aren't an enemy of Nephilim, but you set each of us against each other, family against family, wrecking lives without compunction.
Cassandra Clare -- City of Glass

compunction = guilt for a misdeed

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose
William Shakespeare -- Macbeth

compunctious = pricking the conscience (causing the feeling that it would be wrong to do something)

He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could fancy him, in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly.
Oppenheim, E. Phillips -- The Malefactor
Struggles and resolves had transformed themselves into compunction and anxiety.
Eliot, George -- Adam Bede
Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them?
Plato -- The Republic
We assented vigorously, repeatedly, and without compunction.
Conrad, Joseph -- Tales of Unrest
But they were generally accompanied by a sense of compunction and self-abasement of which Newland Archer felt no trace.
Wharton, Edith -- The Age of Innocence
Will had bruised her pride too sorely for her to feel any compunction towards him and Dorothea: her own injury seemed much the greater.
Eliot, George -- Middlemarch
It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of compunction, remorse, or pity.
Dickens, Charles -- Bleak House
Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear.
Bronte, Emily -- Wuthering Heights
Oh," she added with a priceless air of compunction, "he is such a charming gentleman.
Conrad, Joseph -- The Arrow of Gold
Thereupon the confessor quitted his penitent with an air full of compunction.
Dumas, Alexandre -- Ten Years Later
But my father has this very sum, five thousand pounds, and, as I tell him, I owe him so much that I have no compunction about owing him more.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan -- Beyond the City
He beheld her strike her breast with the compunction of a Christian woman.
Dumas, Alexandre -- The Man in the Iron Mask
I could take a human life, if necessary, with far less compunction than that of a poor, unreasoning, irresponsible brute.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice -- A Princess of Mars
Well, just try to remember how many instances of compunction you have seen.
Conrad, Joseph -- Chance

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