How to Use compunction in a Sentence

compunction

noun
Definition of compunctionnext
Synonyms for compunctionnext
  • These were popes with their own armies and no compunction about using them.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 10 July 2017
  • Because he's faced with this other killer who does not have the same compunction.
    — Anhar Karim, Forbes, 11 Feb. 2023
  • One more thing: my wife has no compunction about accepting the large gifts.
    — Liana Finck, The New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2021
  • Henceforth the quest, the hero’s journey, is to write what has to be written, without compunction.
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2021
  • That your friend felt no such compunction for your safety will be implied.
    — Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 23 Sep. 2023
  • Two, the British Tories have an ingrained culture of stabbing their leaders in the back and in the front without compunction.
    — NBC News, 10 July 2022
  • Finally, there are the folks who seem to have no compunction about just breaking with the president.
    — Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine, 12 Sep. 2017
  • Their love had cooled, and Ms. Smart showed little compunction in letting someone take her place.
    — New York Times, 19 May 2022
  • Yet they are raised and slaughtered without (much) compunction.
    — Aziz Huq, Washington Post, 22 Nov. 2019
  • With the benefit of 50 years’ hindsight, though, DuBois himself had no such compunction.
    — Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 26 Oct. 2020
  • Why leave Instagram?—but customers had far less compunction.
    — Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 21 Feb. 2023
  • And given the ubiquity of AI, what use might terrorists, devoid of compunction, make of it?
    — The Economist, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The victim was Jewish, and Joan has no compunction about expressing her antisemitic bigotry in the most crude and vile terms.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 2 Aug. 2021
  • The small army of Trump surrogates dispatched to defend the president evinced no such compunction.
    — Tina Nguyen, The Hive, 9 June 2017
  • The current team — with Esper now leading the Pentagon — had no such compunctions.
    — Joel Mathis, TheWeek, 13 Jan. 2020
  • Men have never felt compunction about doing this to women.
    — Jennifer Wright, Harper's BAZAAR, 22 Aug. 2018
  • Medusa is vamping, without much compunction, Revealing the writhing of thanatophidia.
    — Washington Post, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Actor/playwright Trey Tatum, though, had no such compunction about speaking out.
    — David Lyman, Cincinnati.com, 6 June 2019
  • But there’s a compunction now to fill our time with activities, with experiences that are ‘special’ in some way, with work and most of all with busy-ness.
    — Dave Murphy, SFChronicle.com, 13 Nov. 2020
  • One of the many boundaries that Donald Trump shattered was this one; there is now no compunction about politicizing the deaths of Americans on a mission abroad.
    — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 27 Aug. 2021
  • Even with my incredibly supportive husband at my side, the compunction of not speaking my truth hit me like a freight train.
    — Stephanie Petit, PEOPLE.com, 25 Oct. 2017
  • The man who had no compunction whatsoever about slaughtering children left a woman who just tried to kill him alive.
    — Erik Kain, Forbes, 15 June 2022
  • Ms. Le Pen and her party still show little compunction over using tried and true National Front strategies that stoke racial fears.
    — Adam Nossiter, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2017
  • That should be done not out of moral compunction but because local businessmen or financiers can’t save the economy.
    — Washington Post, 18 Sep. 2019
  • Street girls have no compunctions about approaching a couple.
    — Gail Sheehy, Daily Intelligencer, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Scrapper’s modern setting depicts the new world disorder in which kids feel no compunction about crime.
    — Armond White, National Review, 30 Aug. 2023
  • But the sanctions episode is a stark reminder that this president has little compunction about letting his top staffers and appointees dangle.
    — James Hohmann, Washington Post, 19 Apr. 2018
  • Democrats have no compunction about bigger deficits caused by domestic spending, which rarely leads to a durable increase in economic growth.
    — Karl Rove, WSJ, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Neither the president nor those 100-plus employees of a major bank show any compunction about cheating.
    — Washington Post, 23 Oct. 2020
  • Craig Robinson lends Curtis a firm manner and bluff humor that find a reflection in Morris’s blend of boldness and compunction, of fierce will and stern principle.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 9 May 2016

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'compunction.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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