compunction

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The Word of the Day for July 24 is:

compunction   \kum-PUNK-shun\   noun
     1 : anxiety arising from awareness of guilt 
    *2 : distress of mind over an anticipated action or result 
     3 : a twinge of misgiving : scruple

Example sentence:
     Andrew had no compunction about searching Lisa's room 
because he believed that she had stolen his diary.

Did you know? 
     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."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.