bloodguilt.

Guilt or moral responsibility arising from causing or participating in bloodshed.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• bear bloodguilt
• acknowledge bloodguilt
• the burden of bloodguilt

On the page

No ceremony, he believed, could erase the bloodguilt of the massacre.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror / gothic literary. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct entry read: guilt resulting from bloodshed; bloodguiltiness and bloodguilty derivatives listed but not added as new words. A precise moral-responsibility term beyond generic guilt; no automatic remorse or legal conviction inferred. Individually reviewed for a precise writer function, not selected merely for rarity. Original definitions/examples; commonness editorial, not a corpus statistic. Genre suitability does not establish inherent fear or emotional intensity. Writing functions: responsibility for spilled blood, moral burden distinguished from felt remorse.