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愧疚 (kuì jiù) — to feel guilty, to be conscience-stricken

Definition

A literary adjective meaning 'guilty, conscience-stricken' — a deeper, more lasting sense of wrongdoing than the everyday 内疚. Use it to describe a weight someone quietly carries inside.

adjective
to feel guiltyto be conscience-stricken

Examples

  • 愧疚。
    Tā yīn wèi sā huǎng ér gǎn dào kuì jiù.
    He felt guilty because he lied.
  • ，愧疚。
    Wǒ duì tā shuō le huǎng, xīn lǐ hěn kuì jiù.
    I lied to him and felt very guilty inside.
  • ，愧疚。
    Tā zuò le cuò shì, dú zì chéng shòu zhe kuì jiù.
    He did something wrong and bore the guilt alone.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
联合liánhéCoordinate

Two parts of equal weight, alike or opposite in meaning, standing side by side.

愧kuìashamed/guilty
疚jiùguilty/uneasy

愧 and 疚 both point to shame and guilty unease, together describing a conscience-stricken feeling.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
心心xīnheart
Sound part声符shēngfú
鬼
鬼guǐ愧kuì
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

愧 has 心, the heart, on the left and 鬼 on the right. 鬼 gives the sound, while 心 shows that the meaning is a feeling in the heart.

Open 愧 →

No reliable origin is recorded for this character.

Appears in
Emotions & Feelings

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