Remorse

How to spell remorse

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce remorse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does remorse mean?

1. nounDeep regret or guilt for a wrong that one has done.

Remorse in a sentence

• He felt genuine remorse after lying to his manager about the missed deadline.

• The driver showed no remorse for speeding through the school zone.

Where does remorse come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin remordere, which literally meant 'to bite again' or 'to bite back', formed from re- 'again' and mordere 'to bite'. From that verb came the noun remorsus, describing the gnawing, biting feeling left behind by a guilty conscience. The idea was vivid and physical: regret was imagined as something that bites at you from the inside. English took the word in the late 1300s through Old French remors, originally in the phrase 'remorse of conscience'. The same mordere root still bites quietly inside words like 'morsel' (a little bite) and 'mordant', and remembering that 'remorse' is literally something that bites at you again helps fix the single -s spelling at the end.

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• mors (from Latin mordere, to bite)
• -e