guilt-trip

guilt-trip verb: to attempt to induce a guilt trip; to cause another to feel guilt, in order to influence the behavior of that individual.

Verb

guilt-trip (third-person singular simple present guilt-trips, present participle guilt-tripping, simple past and past participle guilt-tripped)

(informal, transitive) To attempt to induce a guilt trip; to cause another to feel guilt, in order to influence the behavior of that individual.
- to guilt-trip someone into [doing] something
- I have been fully expecting my father to guilt-trip me, to lay it on really thick about what a terrible son I am, to basically, talk down to me like I was some kind of idiot.1999, David A. Shapiro, Choosing the Right Thing to Do, page 136

First, he tries to guilt-trip her into taking them.2007, Ronald Potter-Efron, Rage: A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, page 106:
In this book, I don't want to guilt-trip you into action.2011, Brian Goins, Playing Hurt: A Guy's Strategy for a Winning Marriage, page 18:

third-person singular present	guilt-trips
present participle	guilt-tripping
past participle	guilt-tripped
past	guilt-tripped
alternative form	guilt trip

Denominal verb of guilt trip. First use appears c. 1977 in the defunct periodical Spare Rib.

What does guilt-trip mean?: Guilt-trip means to attempt to induce a guilt trip; to cause another to feel guilt, in order to influence the behavior of that individual.
How do you use guilt-trip in a sentence?: First, he tries to guilt-trip her into taking them.
What part of speech is guilt-trip?: Guilt-trip is a verb.
What is the past tense of guilt-trip?: The past tense of guilt-trip is guilt-tripped.

Adapted from Wiktionary: guilt-trip (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “guilt-trip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guilt-trip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.