Guiltware

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Software that attempts to convince the user to fulfil some obligation (such as registration or donation to a charity) by eliciting feelings of guilt. informal, uncountable

Example

More examples

"Guiltware is a piece of freeware decorated with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on it and intimating that one is a no-good freeloader if one does not immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money."

Etymology

From guilt + -ware.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.