REMORSE

[Dr. Goodword]

• remorse •

Pronunciation: rê-mors • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: A deep sense of regret, compunction, an embarrassment deriving from guilt combined with repentance.

Notes: Today's word comes with a healthy happy family of derivations, all bearing clear resemblances to their father. The adjective is remorseful, making the adverb remorsefully. There is even another noun, remorsefulness, with a near identical meaning.

In Play: Remorse is the deepest kind of regret: "I could not eat a whole box of chocolates without feeling remorse for the rest of my life." Although it is often used as a simple synonym for regret, it shouldn't be: "Wally felt such deep remorse for putting the frog in the water cooler that he gave up drinking water at the office altogether."

Word History: Today's Good Word was taken from Old French remors (currently remords). French inherited this word from remorsum, the neuter past participle of Latin remordere "to torment", a verb comprising re- "back, again" + mordere "to bite". The descendants of mordere remain today in French modre, Portuguese and Spanish morder and unchanged (mordere) in Italian. The root of this word, mord/merd-, originally meant "to bite, chew" and is found in many words borrowed from Latin that are distantly related to this meaning: mordacious, mordant "biting, sarcastic", mortar (and pestle), morsel. The root is probably related to mort-/mert- "die, kill", underlying such borrowings as mortuary, mortal, and mortify. (We do not feel the slightest twinge of remorse in thanking Stan Davis for suggesting today's sad but Good Word.)

[Perry]

In Italian (and someone please correct my spelling), "a barking dog doesn't bit" is "canno qui baio no mordo". So barking dogs are remorseless, never having moresed in the first place.

[Slava]

Okay, now how about the French connection here? With a root of merd, can't someone come up with a witticism or two?

Also, if you eat that whole box of chocolate, wouldn't you feel remorse and fullness at the same time? Thus making remorsefulness the proper choice?

[Stargzer]

Okay, now how about the French connection here? With a root of merd, can't someone come up with a witticism or two?

I take it you're looking for Mordez ma merde or Mordez de merde et mourez? It does have a bit of alliteration to it, but I don't know enough French slang to know if it's really a phrase that's used.

Also, if you eat that whole box of chocolate, wouldn't you feel remorse and fullness at the same time? Thus making remorsefulness the proper choice?

Well, to split hairs here, the PIE root is "bite, chew," not eat, so if you don't swallow it it's mord/merd. However, the AHD says that ed- is the PIE root for eat, with an original meaning of "to bite."


Tolkien supposedly took Mordor from Sindarin (Black Land) and Quenya (Land of Shadow), but Latin mordere "to bite" would work for me, especially with that spider guarding the pass ...

[gailr]

Also, if you eat that whole box of chocolate, wouldn't you feel remorse and fullness at the same time? Thus making remorsefulness the proper choice?

My only remorse is that you thought this up before the rest of us.

[Slava]

My only remorse is that you thought this up before the rest of us.

Does this mean you're fully in a state of remorse?

[Slava]

In Italian (and someone please correct my spelling), "a barking dog doesn't bit" is "canno qui baio no mordo". So barking dogs are remorseless, never having moresed in the first place.

I believe that's spelled/spelt "bite".

[Slava]

In Italian (and someone please correct my spelling), "a barking dog doesn't bit" is "canno qui baio no mordo". So barking dogs are remorseless, never having moresed in the first place.

Interestingly, the Russian for muzzle, as on a beastie, is "mordo", also an insulting term to use for the face of a sapient biped. This makes the root for bite become the word for the thing that does the biting.

[Cacasenno]

In Italian (and someone please correct my spelling), "a barking dog doesn't bit" is "canno qui baio no mordo". So barking dogs are remorseless, never having moresed in the first place.

Cane che abbaia non morde.

(ma morde appena smette di abbaiare!)

Warning:
Rottweiler tend to morse, re-morse and re-morse again and again

[Perry]

In Italian (and someone please correct my spelling), "a barking dog doesn't bit" is "canno qui baio no mordo". So barking dogs are remorseless, never having moresed in the first place.

Cane che abbaia non morde.

(ma morde appena smette di abbaiare!)

Warning:
Rottweiler tend to morse, re-morse and re-morse again and again

This was the spelling help I was looking for. But Slava did pick up on a typo. (The missing E in 'bite'.)

While we are on the side subject of Italian expressions, I have to wonder about the one for good luck, "in bocca al lupo" (in the wolf's mouth). I guess it is somthing like the theater's "break a leg".

[Stargzer]

Since dogs are not computer literate in any language, one could say that dogs never byte.

[Perry]

[Stargzer]

And without opposable thumbs, it is difficult for a dog to make a bight in a rope.