Conscience Guilty Compunction Sting Prick Compungere Kuhm Puhnk Shuhn Noun

[An old proverb says "a guilty conscience needs no accuser," and it's true that the sting of a guilty conscience — or a conscience that is provoked by the contemplation of doing something wrong — can prick very hard indeed. The sudden guilty "prickings" of compunction are reflected in the word's etymological history. "Compunction" comes from the Latin "compunctus," the past participle of "compungere," which means "to prick hard" or "to sting." "Compungere," in turn, derives from "pungere," meaning "to prick," which is the ancestor of some other prickly words in English, such as "puncture" and even "point."]