guilt trip
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: guilt trips
Etymology: From guilt + trip. First use appears c. 1972 in the novel Any Minute I Can Split by Judith Rossner.
Senses: examples: text: to go on a guilt trip
text: to send someone on a guilt trip
text: “I know what she’s talking about, too,” Roger said. “But I don’t see any way of getting around it. First of all, I want to make it clear that nobody’s sending me on any guilt trip over my money.”
ref: 1972, Judith Rossner, Any Minute I Can Split, New York: McGraw-Hill, →ISBN, page 174:
text: Thinking about the origins of our stuff (and stuffing) should not preclude gleeful participation in tomorrow’s free-for-all, nor do I mean to send anyone on a guilt trip for enjoying traditions old and new.
ref: 2014 November 27, Chad Broughton, “Black Friday, Through the Eyes of Smith and Marx”, in The Atlantic:
text: My parents had survived war and dictatorship before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed more non-Europeans to immigrate to the United States, and they overcompensated for the austerity of their childhoods by allowing me to consume any food I wanted, with a side of guilt trip.
ref: 2017 April 6, Lisa Ko, “What ‘White’ Food Meant to a First-Generation Kid”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: I have done my part by paying taxes to sustain payments of anticipated benefits. If Mr. Kramon wants to go on a guilt trip, he can do so, but he is dead wrong that our generation shirked its responsibilities, and, frankly, I am getting tired of listening to this nonsense.
ref: 2018 November 3, Robert Millsap, “Are Baby Boomers Being Selfish?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: “There are a few yacht-based movements and marine foundations, which are sometimes labeled as a yacht-owner’s guilt trip, that are part of the whole environmental conversation going on at the moment,” he added.
ref: 2019 October 8, Peter Wilson, quoting Dickie Bannenberg, “No One Needs a Superyacht, but They Keep Selling Them”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: It’s true that I asked my opa some less than tactful questions on that visit. And as for that guilt trip about seeing him at least once more, yes, I saw him a bunch more times.
ref: 2020 September 1, Alexander Starritt, “‘We Germans,’ Alexander Starritt by the Author: An Excerpt”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: A feeling of shame or embarrassment, especially if self-indulgent, unwarranted, exaggerated or felt over a significant period of time.
examples: text: I must admit that I personally dislike this form of fundraising and consider it to be one of the worst ways to raise awareness for any charity, the only one worse than this is the ‘knock on the door’ at teatime with the same ‘guilt trip’ message hammered home by the young person in the charity shirt.
ref: 2013 June 27, “Letters: getting over the charitable giving guilt trip”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
text: Sections of the media are culpable of only describing two types of African – powerful and corrupt, or destitute and starving. But Comic Relief’s biennial guilt trip perpetuates these stereotypes and fails to move the debate on in a constructive way.
ref: 2017 March 24, David Lammy, “Africa deserves better from Comic Relief”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: An act that produces such a feeling.
Derived terms: word: guilt-trip
word: guilt-trippy
Related terms: ego trip