n.
the imaginary committee of elders that keeps a running log of all your mistakes, steadily building their case that you’re secretly a fraud, a coward, a doofus, and a douche—who would’ve revoked your good fortune years ago had they not been hampered by their own bitter squabblings over proper grammar and spelling.
Old English gilt, awareness of wrongdoing + wrought, shaped with hammers. Pronounced “the gilt-rahyts.”