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Glite Dictionary
to weigh on someone's conscience

to weigh on someone's conscience

7.5
To make someone feel guilty about something they did or failed to do
  • idiom
translation icon : pesar en la conciencia de alguien
  • Knowing that she had let her team down began to weigh on her conscience during the final game.

Examples

  • The lie he told his friend continued to weigh on his conscience long after their argument.

  • Is it weighing on your conscience?

    The Assassin's Code (2018)

  • After a while, so much abuse started to weigh on our consciences.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Yet the walks or outings with my parents, which always took place on Sundays, weighed on my conscience and triggered a great sense of shame.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • She couldn't shake the feeling that her decision would weigh on her conscience for years to come.

Synonyms

to shame
vsto weigh on someone's conscience
170 3.9

To make someone feel guilty or embarrassed to get them to do something

is an internal sense of regret or trouble rather than a social pressure tactic
to weigh on
vsto weigh on someone's conscience
23 5.2

To cause worry or sadness that stays in someone's mind

targets moral responsibility and regret about past actions rather than general worry
to guilt
vsto weigh on someone's conscience
18 7.4

To make someone feel ashamed or responsible so they do something

is an internal feeling of trouble about past acts rather than forcing action

Antonyms

to forgive
∞ 1.4

To stop feeling angry at someone or yourself for a mistake

to absolve
  • Formal
50 7.2

Make someone officially free from blame, guilt, or responsibility

How Guilty

to haunt
268 4.9
to weigh on someone's conscience
7.5
to eat at
  • Informal
14 7.1

Surface Forms

weigh on someone's conscience infinitive
weighed on someone's conscience past
weighed on someone's conscience past participle
weighing on someone's conscience present participle
weighs on someone's conscience third person singular

Morphology

weigh + on + someone's + conscience

The meaning 'to make someone feel guilty or troubled' follows directly from combining 'weigh' (to cause worry or mental pressure) with 'on' + 'conscience' (one's sense of right and wrong); the image of weight pressing on the conscience transparently maps to feeling guilty. This weight-as-pressure metaphor is common cross-linguistically and a standard English construction, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to infer the meaning.

Etymology

Weigh on someone's conscience gives a clear picture: imagine a heavy stone pressing on your mind. The verb weigh is the pressure and conscience is your feeling of right and wrong, so the phrase means 'to make someone feel guilty or troubled'.