remorse [LME] The idea behind remorse is of regret or guilt that eats away at you, prompting you to repent. The word goes back to Latin remordere ‘to annoy, trouble’. The first part of the word, re-, adds intensity, and the second is mordere ‘to bite’. As re- most often means ‘again’ in a word, remorse was literally translated in Middle English as ‘again-bite’. There is a famous English religious work called Agenbite of Inwyt (‘Remorse of Conscience’) written c.1340. James Joyce used the expression in Ulysses (1922), thereby introducing it to a wider audience.