Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Guilt |
GuiltNoun1. The state of having committed an offense. 2. Remorse cause by feeling responsible for some offence. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "guilt" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1200. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In psychology and ordinary language, guilt is simply a negative affective state in which one experiences regret at having done something one believes one "should not" have done. Guilt and its causes, merits, and demerits is a common theme in psychology and psychiatry. It is often associated with depression.
In criminal law, sometimes in individual and religious moral codes, and more rarely in systems of ethics (either as a philosophical discipline or in ethical codes and professions relying on them), guilt is a concept similar to the economic concept of debt. Actions of low or negative legal value that cause damage on the object, put an equal amount of guilt on the agent. Value theory addresses these questions directly.
Guilt can sometimes be remedied by punishment (a common legal action and advised or required in many legal codes), by forgiveness (as in transformative justice), or by sincere remorse (as with confession in Catholicism or restorative justice). Law does not usually accept the agent's self-punishment, but some ancient codes did so: in Athens the accused was permitted to propose his or her own remedy, which might in fact be a reward, while the accuser proposed another, and the jury chose between. This forced the accused to effectively bet on his support in the community - as Socrates did when he proposed "room and board in the town hall" as his fate. He lost, and drank hemlock, a poison, as advised by his accuser.
Traditional Japanese society and Ancient Greek society are sometimes said to be "shame-based" rather than "guilt-based" in that the social consequences of "getting caught" are seen as more important than the individual feelings or experiences of the agent. This may lead to more of a focus on etiquette than ethics as understood in Western civilization. This leads some to question why them we would adapt the words ethos and mores from Ancient Greek when their norms are so different from ours. A meta-wikipedia article asks this.
Christianity and Islam inherit most notions of guilt from Judaism, Persiann and Roman ideas, mostly as interpreted through Augustine who adapted Plato's ideas to Christianity. The Latin word for guilt is culpa, a word sometimes seen in law literature, e.g. in "mea culpa", "I take responsibility". The Latin word for authority assumes a high degree of responsibility, the English word "province" being a close equivalent.
The relationship between guilt, social trust and the law is complex. A nearly universal notion is that guilt cannot accrue by ignorance except remarkably by ignorance of the law - giving law special status in any ontology. This notion alone explains why religious moral codes and the legal codes of civilizations have tended to evolve closely together.
Some thinkers have theorized that guilt is used as a tool of social control. Since guilty people feel they are undeserving, they are less likely to assert their rights and prerogatives. Thus, those in power seek to cultivate a sense of guilt among the populace, in order to make them more tractable. This was a theme in Eric Hoffer's True Believer. Ayn Rand claimed that Christian sexual morality served a similar purpose.
Another common notion is that guilt is actually assigned by social processes like a jury trial, i.e. that it is a strictly legal concept. Thus the ruling of a jury that O. J. Simpson or Julius Rosenberg was "guilty" or "not guilty" is taken as an actual judgement by the whole society that they must act as if he were so. By corollary, the ruling that such a person is "not guilty" may not be so taken, due to the asymmetry that assumes one is innocent until proven guilty and prefers to take the risk of freeing a guilty party over convicting innocents.
Guilt was a theme in John Steinbeck's East of Eden and many other works of literature. It is a nearly universal concern in novels, who explore inner life and secrets.
See also: good faith, shame
External Links:
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Guilt."
Synonyms: GuiltSynonyms: guilt feelings (n), guilt trip (n), guiltiness (n), guilty conscience (n). (additional references) |
| Antonym: innocence (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Guilt | Noun: guilt, guiltiness; culpability; criminality, criminousness;Noun: guilt, guiltiness; culpability; criminality, criminousness; deviation from rectitude; (improbity); sinfulness; (vice). |
Inexpedience | Badness; Adjective: peccancy, abomination; painfulness; pestilence; (disease); guilt; depravity. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | How you love your precious guilt. (Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles; writing credit: Anne Rice) He was always afraid of getting ripped off, yet at the same time he would rip things off without shame or guilt. Chaos and man, although hopeful could also be, you know, a leeetle tiresome (S.L.C. Punk!; writing credit: James Merendino.) There's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring, which makes it like sex. (Bull Durham; writing credit: Ron Shelton.) What you're feeling are pangs of guilt. (Will & Grace; writing credit: Evan Weinstein) If we stop it's an admission of guilt! (Holocaust; writing credit: Gerald Green) | |
Lyrics | Remembering robbed my moms wit no guilt (Life Story; performing artist: Black Rob) And guilt that overthrow me (Flood; performing artist: Jars Of Clay) Father's hands are lined with guilt (Too Bad; performing artist: Nickelback) An American artist, and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure (Babelogue; performing artist: Patti Smith) Until your guilt goes up in flames (My Favorite Mistake; performing artist: Sheryl Crow) | |
Clever | If innocence can leave, guilt can come. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Guilt Is My Shadow (1950) The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947) Guilt (1930) The Guilt of Silence (1918) Circumstantial Guilt (1916) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Bacon | Blushing is the livery of virtue, though it may sometimes proceed from guilt. |
Blair | How blunt are all the arrows of adversity in comparison with those of guilt! |
Jane Austen | Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. |
Jean Jacques Rousseau | Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame. |
John Dryden | Secret guilt by silence is betrayed. |
John Ruskin | Life without industry is guilt. Industry without Art is Brutality. |
Ovid | Forbear to lay the guilt of a few on the many. |
Publius Cornelius Tacitus | Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood. |
William Cowper | Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
John Locke | 1690 | But because the miscarriages of the father are no faults of the children, and they may be rational and peaceable, notwithstanding the brutishness and injustice of the father; the father, by his miscarriages and violence, can forfeit but his own life, but involves not his children in his guilt or destruction. (Second Treatise of Government) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | She denied his guilt. |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | The death of his wife, followed by months of being alone, had marked him with guilt and shame and had left an unbreaking loneliness on him. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Common reactions are denial, anger, guilt, grief, fear, and confusion. (references) | |
The parents of a child diagnosed with Marfan syndrome may feel sadness, anger, and guilt. (references) | ||
Finally, young people of all ages tend to feel guilt and anger at the time of a severe illness. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Iran | The jury is empowered to recommend to the presiding judge the guilt or innocence of defendants and the severity of any penalty to be imposed, although these recommendations are not binding legally. (references) |
Ethiopia | That committee, along with the university senate, decided that all students, including those who had boycotted classes or who had not signed any forms admitting guilt, were eligible to reenroll in classes for the spring semester. (references) | |
Human Rights | Argentina | A panel of judges decides guilt or innocence. (references) |
Political Rights | Pakistan | Legal observers expressed concern over the concentration of power in the NAB, the fact that NAB chairmen have all been members of the military, and the presumption of guilt in accountability cases. (references) |
Women | Venezuela | They claim that many victims do not report the incident or press charges due to societal pressure and their own feelings of guilt. (references) |
Netherlands | Fewer than 10 percent of victims of domestic violence report to the police; most cases are not reported out of fear, shame, or guilt. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Brazil | Human rights groups and land reform activists criticized a jury verdict in June in Paraiba absolving a landowner of guilt in the 1983 slaying of rural labor leader Margarida Maria Alves. (references) |
Russia | The leader subsequently left her position and an individual was charged with "hooliganism" in connection with the youth's death; however, union leaders remained doubtful about the individual's guilt. (references) | |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Dennis Miller | We're so used to people denying their guilt, that when we hear somebody actually take responsibility for their actions, we get that confused look on our face people always have when their cat starts dry humping a Great Dane. |
Marla Hanson | Maybe I might have. You know, but then you have the guilt that you didn't stop them from hurting somebody else. So I don't know, I was proud of myself for doing that, and standing up for myself and going through that process, but it came at a big price. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Guilt" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.76% of the time. "Guilt" is used about 1,606 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 98.76% | 1,586 | 5,219 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 0.81% | 13 | 97,576 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 0.44% | 7 | 133,076 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,606 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "guilt": acquitted in default of proof of guilt ♦ confess one's guilt ♦ deny one's guilt ♦ feeling guilt ♦ Feelings of guilt ♦ Guilt and shame ♦ guilt by association ♦ guilt complex ♦ guilt feelings ♦ guilt pang ♦ guilt trip ♦ patch up a guilt ♦ plead guilt ♦ sense of guilt ♦ war guilt. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "guilt": guilt-absolving, guilt-anxiety-fear-anger, guilt-complex, guilt-edged, guilt-feeling, guilt-free, guilt-inducing, guilt-laden, guilt-making, guilt-offering, guilt-offerings, guilt-producing, guilt-provoking, guilt-ridden, Guilt-sick, guilt-sodden, guilt-stained, guilt-stricken. | |
Ending with "guilt": blood-guilt, envy-guilt, self-guilt. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "guilt"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | faj (blame, buck, crime, delinquency, fault, guiltiness, wrong). (various references) | |
Arabic | معصية (sin), تهمة (accusation, blame, charge, frame, frame up, imputation, indictment, suspicion), ذنب إثم (fault), إثم (debt, delinquency, error, evil, guiltiness, iniquity, misdeed, offence, sin, transgression, viciousness, wrongdoing). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | грях (error, evil, frailty, iniquity, peccancy, sin, transgression, trespass, wrongdoing), вина (blame, criminality, delinquency, fault, rap), закононарушение (wrongdoing). (various references) | |
Catalan | culpa (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Chinese | 罪状 (indictment), 罪 (blame, crime, fault, sin). (various references) | |
Czech | vina (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Danish | skyld (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Dutch | schuld (blame, debt, fault). (various references) | |
Esperanto | kulpo (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Farsi | گناه (Blame, Crime, Misdeed, Misdemeanor, Sin, Transgression, Vice), تقصیر (Crime, Delinquency, Error, Offense, Rap), جرم (Crime, Mass, Misdeed, Spawn), بزه (Crime, Misdeed, Misdemeanor, Offense, Sin). (various references) | |
Finnish | syyllisyys. (various references) | |
French | culpabilité (guiltiness), accusation. (various references) | |
Frisian | skuld (blame, debt, fault). (various references) | |
German | schuld (blame, debt, fault, guiltiness, liability, responsible, sin, trespasses, wrong). (various references) | |
Greek | ενοχή (blame, criminality, culpability, culpableness, guiltiness, implication). (various references) | |
Hawaiian | faj (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Hebrew | חוב" (blame, duty, must, obligation), אשמ" (accusation, blame, charge, fault, guiltiness), אשם (accused, blame, blameworthy, culpable, fault, guilty, offence, sin, trespass), חטא (atonement, sin, transgression, vice, wrong). (various references) | |
Hungarian | vétkesség (culpability, culpableness, delinquency, guiltiness, sinfulness). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kesalahan (error, flaw, gaffe, mistake, trespass). (various references) | |
Italian | colpa (blame, blot, debt, error, fault, guiltiness, negligence, sin, wrong). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 落度 (error, fault), 罪科 (crime, offense, punishment), 有罪 (culpability). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | おちど (error, fault, mistake), ざいか (commodity, crime, fault, goods on hand, offence, offense, property, punishment, stock), ゆうざい (culpability). (various references) | |
Korean | 죄. (various references) | |
Manx | loght (crime, default, fault, flaw, iniquity, serious offence, shortcoming, transgression, trespass, vice), kyndid (culpability). (various references) | |
Norwegian | skyld (fault). (various references) | |
Papiamen | kulpa (accuse, blame, fault). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | uiltgay.(various references) | |
Polish | przewinienie (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Portuguese | culpa (blame, fault, frailty, malpractice, offence, offense), delito (crime, delict, delinquency, fault, malpractice, misdeed, misdemeanor, misdemeanour, misdoing, offence, offense, transgression). (various references) | |
Romanian | vinovãţie, vinã (aberration, blame, cause, charge, default, fault, lode, onus), pãcat (error, mistake, offence, peccancy, sin, trespass), culpã, acuzare (accusation, accusing, arraignment, charge, denouncement, denunciation, impeachment, imputation, inculpation, indictment). (various references) | |
Russian | вина (blame, fault). (various references) | |
Scottish | coire (a cauldron, blame, boiler, cauldron, fault, harm, kettle, kettle; corrie, pot), cionta (sin), ciont. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | greh (sin, trespass, wrongdoing), krivica (blame, culpability, fault, guiltiness). (various references) | |
Spanish | culpa (blame, fault, onus). (various references) | |
Swedish | skuld (blame, culpability, debt, due, fault, guile, indebtedness, score). (various references) | |
Thai | ความรู้สึกผิ". (various references) | |
Turkish | günahkârlık (depravation, depravity, guiltiness, sinfulness, wickedness), suçluluk (criminality, culpability, delinquency, guiltiness), suç (blame, caper, crime, criminality, culpability, delict, delinquency, error, fault, felony, irregularity, job, misdeed, misdemeanor, misdemeanour, offence, offense, rap, sin, transgression, wrong), kabahat (blame, delinquency, demerit, fault, sin, wrongdoing). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | караність (guiltiness), гріх (debt, evil, lapse, peccancy, sin, transgression, wrong doing), вина (fault), провинність. (various references) | |
Welsh | euogrwydd (guiltiness). (various references) | |
Yucatec | kuch (blame, burden, charge, fault, load). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | crimen. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "guilt": guiltier, guiltiest, guiltily, guiltiness, guiltinesses, guiltless, guiltlessly, guiltlessness, guiltlessnesses, guilts, guilty. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "guilt": bloodguilt, nonguilt. (additional references) | |
Words containing "guilt": bloodguiltiness, bloodguiltinesses, bloodguilts, bloodguilty, nonguilts. (additional references) | |
| |
"Guilt" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: gewalt, Gewirth, Gilot, Giulii, Giumiot, goil, gualt, gueft, guel, guelf, Guelta, gui, guidt, guiet, guil, guill, guillo, guilo, guilts, guint, guit, guito, gulia, Gunilla, guul, Guyatt, Guyt, gwilt, muilt. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "guilt" (pronounced gi"lt) |
| 4 | g i" l t | gilt. |
| 3 | -i" l t | built, hilt, jilt, kilt, lilt, Milt, overbuilt, quilt, rebuilt, silt, spilt, stilt, tilt, unbuilt, wilt. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "g-i-l-t-u" | |
-1 letter: gilt, glut, iglu, litu. | |
-2 letters: git, gul, gut, lit, lug, til, tug, tui. | |
-3 letters: it, li, ti, ut. | |
| Words containing the letters "g-i-l-t-u" | |
+1 letter: glutei, guilts, guilty, luting. | |
+2 letters: butling, eluting, fluting, gluiest, goutily, gustily, gutlike, gutsily, liturgy, louting, lunting, lusting, lutings, ugliest, uplight. | |
+3 letters: blunting, blurting, bulgiest, bustling, clouting, cultigen, cuttling, diluting, eulogist, exulting, faulting, flouting, flutings, glouting, glutelin, glutting, guiltier, guiltily, gulfiest, gulosity, gulpiest, gumbotil, gunflint, guttling, hurtling, hustling, justling, ligature, lightful, ligulate, linguist, liturgic, lustring, luxating, moulting, mulcting, multiage, nonguilt, outlying, pugilist, quilting, rightful, rustling, saluting, sunlight, tousling, touzling, tumbling, turgidly, turtling, tussling, uplights, vaulting. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Historic | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Quotations: Spoken 12. Usage Frequency | 13. Expressions 14. Expressions: Internet 15. Translations: Modern 16. Translations: Ancient | 17. Derivations 18. Rhymes 19. Anagrams 20. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
