compunctious
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of compunctious
First recorded in 1595–1605; compunct(ion) + -ious
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The English translator, speaking of the sacking of Panama, has expressed himself with a strange mixture of boasting and compunctious feeling.
From History of the Buccaneers of America by James Burney
Decent folk in the brake behind felt compunctious visitings when they saw him turn with the flushed grin and the gleaming squint on the head of his enduring victim.
From The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown
"Why do you bother about those brats, Miss Liddon, while the nurse spends all her time flirting over the back fence?" their father said, in a gay but compunctious tone.
From A Humble Enterprise by Ada Cambridge
My daughter! my daughter!" followed by the compunctious "God!
From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
The unacknowledged yearnings of nature, excited by his resemblance to his father, made him wish to save his life, while the compunctious visitings of mercy were again repressed by terror for his own.
From The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 An Historical Novel by Jane West
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
