GUILT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does guilt mean? 

• GUILT (noun)
  The noun GUILT has 2 senses:

1. the state of having committed an offense

2. remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense

  Familiarity information: GUILT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUILT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of having committed an offense

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

guilt; guiltiness

Hypernyms ("guilt" is a kind of...):

condition; status (a state at a particular time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "guilt"):

blameworthiness; culpability; culpableness (a state of guilt)

bloodguilt (the state of being guilty of bloodshed and murder)

complicity (guilt as an accomplice in a crime or offense)

criminalism; criminality; criminalness (the state of being a criminal)

guilt by association (the attribution of guilt (without proof) to individuals because the people they associate with are guilty)

impeachability; indictability (the state of being liable to impeachment)

Antonym:

innocence (a state or condition of being innocent of a specific crime or offense)

Derivation:

guilty (responsible for or chargeable with a reprehensible act)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

guilt; guilt feelings; guilt trip; guilty conscience

Hypernyms ("guilt" is a kind of...):

compunction; remorse; self-reproach (a feeling of deep regret (usually for some misdeed))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "guilt"):

survivor guilt (a deep feeling of guilt often experienced by those who have survived some catastrophe that took the lives of many others; derives in part from a feeling that they did not do enough to save the others who perished and in part from feelings of being unworthy relative to those who died)

Derivation:

guilty (showing a sense of guilt)

 Context examples 

His eyes were likewise greeted by White Fang, but about the latter there were no signs of shame nor guilt.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

My stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I felt.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I am not one of your enemies, I believed you guiltless, notwithstanding every evidence, until I heard that you had yourself declared your guilt.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower—breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

What could more plainly speak the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes of guilt?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It may include feelings of great sadness, anger, guilt, and despair.

(Grief, NCI Dictionary)

Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 21 Item (HAMD-21) Feelings of guilt.

(HAMD-21 - Feelings of Guilt, NCI Thesaurus)

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17 Item (HAMD-17) Feelings of guilt.

(HAMD-17 - Feelings of Guilt, NCI Thesaurus)

Mental reactions can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness and despair.

(Bereavement, NIH: National Cancer Institute)