Satispassion

Cribbed from Schott’s Vocab blog at the New York Times website:

“Satispassion” is a word meaning “atonement by an adequate degree of suffering”.

I find this a great word, because it matches up with a concept for which I haven’t had a word before.

Think about the times when you (or someone else) does something bad or stupid.  You profusely apologize to the person you hurt or insulted or whatever, but their forgiveness is not enough for you (or maybe there was no actual injured party to forgive you).  You have to mentally beat yourself up and generally cause yourself to suffer until you feel that you have atoned for the bad deed.  Or perhaps the other person technically forgives you but reminds you frequently and pointedly of what you did, causing you to relive the issue until he/she feel you have suffered enough for their tastes.

“Satispassion” — we experience it quite a lot, I think.