A fault to which a person or institution is especially prone.
‘there was a danger of the country reverting to its besetting sin of complacency’
‘Condoned truancy and absence is one of the besetting sins of the education service.’
‘In her book, the author says: ‘Pride is the besetting sin of the anorexic: pride in her self-denial, in her thin body, in her superiority.’
‘The author asserts that they have difficulty in dealing with temptations and besetting sins because ‘they are both at peace in the world and divided among themselves’.’
‘Wrath is, as regular readers know, one of my besetting sins.’
‘Today they are more conscious of failures, habits and besetting sins which cause enormous guilt.’
‘Nevertheless it is necessary to watch for his besetting sins, and correct them whenever they occur.’
‘They sometimes give way to inconsistencies and besetting sins, and lose their sense of pardon.’
‘The besetting sin of local government elected councillors is that they begin to develop a kind of mini-megalomania - an obsession with their own importance as the lowest of the low of elected representatives.’
‘Yet it's the besetting sin of the professional class to render itself invisible in its own calculations.’
‘He has a piece in today's Washington Post in which he argues that the besetting sin of today's journalists is arrogance.’
‘Yet Paul's besetting sin is apparently covetousness.’
‘His theory is that the Party's besetting sin over the past few decades has been snobbery.’
‘Such behaviour is the besetting sin of psychology and renders science in the field concerned impossible.’
‘To subject a decision of the court or tribunal below to too narrow a textual analysis is a besetting sin for the appellate court.’
‘This was one of the besetting sins of the Pharisees.’
‘The besetting sins of oppressed people may include self-denial, passivity and complicity in their own oppression.’
persistent, constant, recurrent, recurring
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