Gnawing, anguished self-reproach for a wrong done.
Gnawing, anguished self-reproach for a wrong done — guilt that bites the conscience.
A deep, lingering, insistent self-reproach and inner torment over past wrongs, especially ones whose damage can no longer be undone. It fixes on the wrong itself and harrows the conscience, yet carries no built-in resolve to make things right — that resolve belongs to contrition. The standard secular and legal term (judges look for “signs of remorse”); stronger than mere regret.
Late 14c., from Medieval Latin remorsum “a biting back,” from Latin remordere “to vex, torment,” literally “to bite back, bite again” (re- “again” + mordere “to bite”).
The sense developed via the phrase remorsus conscientiae (“remorse of conscience,” Chaucer; also rendered Middle English ayenbite of inwit, “again-bite of inner wit”). The literal “biting” was seldom used; the conscience-sense was primary from the start. No reliable recent-generation shift.