Dictionary

conscience money en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, uncountable) Money which is voluntarily paid by a party who feels guilt, and seeks to provide compensation, for some past misdeed or negligence.
   • He described the aid work done by religious missions as "conscience money" to make up for the harm they have done. 2010 November 28, Paul Harris, “Tony Blair v Christopher Hitchens: fight the good fight”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 24 Aug 2014:
   • Other US companies, keen to be seen making the politically correct investment now, are bringing ‘conscience money’ to the new South Africa. 1994 May 3, Richard Dowden, “most-south-africans-will-not-see-newfound-wealth-overnight-says-richard-dowden-1433381.html Big Mac and Coke? Not so fast . . .: Most South Africans will not see new-found wealth overnight”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 24 Aug 2014:
   • The Secretary of the Treasury is almost daily in receipt of installments of conscience-money, which the perturbed moral sense of a guilty office-holder or other defrauder of the government suggests the payment of in order to obtain "a still and quiet conscience." 1865 November 23, “From Washington”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Aug 2014:
   • "Whatever I've done, I've always been criticized. . . . If I donated to a church, it was called conscience money; and if I didn't donate to it, they said I was mean and miserly." 1918, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 1, in Oh, Money! Money!:

Forms

Relateds

blood money

Translations (2)

gv argid cooinsheanse (money which is voluntarily paid by a party who feels guilt) · pl pieniądze wpłacone dla uspokojenia sumienia (money which is voluntarily paid by a party who feels guilt)