GUILTY CONSCIENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does guilty conscience mean? 

• GUILTY CONSCIENCE (noun)
  The noun GUILTY CONSCIENCE has 1 sense:

1. remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense

  Familiarity information: GUILTY CONSCIENCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GUILTY CONSCIENCE (noun)

Sense 1

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 ("guilty conscience" 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 "guilty conscience"):

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)

 Context examples 

If his own guilty conscience had not struck him down it is likely enough that I might have had his blood upon my soul.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)