Other forms: resentments
Resentment is the slow-burning anger about an old unfairness you cannot forget. Deep resentment, breed resentment, harbour resentment.
What distinguishes it from anger is time: resentment is kept rather than felt, and it grows on being revisited. It is the standard word for what unfair treatment leaves behind in families and workplaces long after the event. Note resent, resentful; and that the word once meant simply to feel strongly about anything, good or bad, which is why the French ressentiment still covers more ground.
1nounresentmentSlow-burning anger about an old unfairness.
“She felt deep resentment towards her brother, who had always been their parents' favourite.”
resentment is a lasting anger.
French ressentir means to feel again — re- plus sentir, from Latin sentire, to feel. Resentment is literally re-feeling, which is exactly what it does.
Proto-Indo-European
*sent-
Latin
sentiō,sentīre — to feel
Old French
sentir
Middle French and French
ressentiment
English, today
resentment
From resent + ment, after Middle French and French ressentiment (in Old French - as recentement), from an archaic usage of the verb ressentir via Old French sentir, from Latin sentiō,sentīre (“to feel”). Compare Italian risentimento, Portuguese ressentimento, and Spanish resentimiento. a doublet of resentiment and ressentiment, the former attested slightly earlier.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA