guilt pang
- noun
- /ɡɪlt pæŋ/
:
punzada de culpa
- One morning he was suffering guilt pangs over his embezzlement of school funds.
Examples
-
After tricking his friend into investing in a bad business, he was struck by a guilt pang that kept him awake all night.
-
She felt a guilt pang when she realized she had forgotten her friend's birthday.
-
Every time he passed the charity he hadn't supported, a guilt pang shot through him for not donating.
Synonyms
1
6.1
A sudden sharp feeling of regret about something you did or did not do
1
5.0
A sudden sharp feeling of guilt
Antonyms
How Guilty
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'pang' denotes a sudden sharp twinge and combined with 'guilt' yields a sudden sharp feeling of guilt. This noun+ noun/compound pattern (e.g. 'pangs of guilt') is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun guilt pang comes from a simple image. The word pang means a sudden sharp pain, so a guilt pang is the quick, sharp 'feeling of guilt' you get when you suddenly remember something wrong.