Blame vs Compunction - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between blame and compunction

is that blame is censure while compunction is a pricking of conscience or a feeling of regret, especially one which is slight or fleeting.

As a verb blame

is to censure (someone or something); to criticize.

blame

English

Etymology 1

(etyl), from (etyl)

Noun

(-)

Censure.

Blame came from all directions.

Culpability for something negative or undesirable.

The blame for starting the fire lies with the arsonist.

Responsibility for something meriting censure.

They accepted the blame , but it was an accident.

Derived terms

* put the blame on

Etymology 2

(etyl), from (etyl) blasmer, from . Compare (blaspheme)

Verb

(blam)

To censure (someone or something); to criticize.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ii:

though my loue be not so lewdly bent, / As those ye blame , yet may it nought appease / My raging smart [...].

These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.

* 1919 , (Saki), ‘The Oversight’, The Toys of Peace :

That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his volume on Domestic Life in Tartary . The critics all blamed it for a lack of concentration.

* 2006 , Clive James, North Face of Soho , Picador 2007, p. 106:

I covered the serious programmes too, and indeed, right from the start, I spent more time praising than blaming .

(obsolete) To bring into disrepute.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.viii:

For knighthoods loue, do not so foule a deed, / Ne blame your honour with so shamefull vaunt / Of vile reuenge.

To assert or consider that someone is the cause of something negative; to place blame, to attribute responsibility (for something negative or for doing something negative).

The arsonist was blamed for the fire.

Synonyms

* reproach, take to task, upbraid * (consider that someone is the cause of something negative) hold to account

Derived terms

* blamer

Anagrams

* English reporting verbs

compunction

English

Noun

(en noun)

A pricking of conscience or a feeling of regret, especially one which is slight or fleeting.

* :

[H]e would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city.

* 1897 , , Dracula , ch. 3:

I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could.

* 1920 , , Women in Love , ch. 8:

But he felt, later, a little compunction . He had been violent, cruel with poor Hermione. He wanted to recompense her, to make it up.

* 2003 February 16, Blaine Greteman, " No Peace Dividend," Time :

As for average U.S. consumers, they've shown little compunction about buying diamonds that fund bloody militias in Africa.

Synonyms

* regret, remorse, qualm * See also