contrition

What might once have been a footnote in a quarterly earnings report has become a recognizable genre: the corporate reversal, performed in public, equal parts contrition and spectacle.

In a fresh extract from her memoir, published in the Sunday Times, Sturgeon accuses Salmond of failing to show any contrition for his "inappropriate" behaviour towards women.

He has shown contrition, but it has been a damaging few days.

If, for one example, Baldoni were to communicate to Lively some contrition for his part in this dispute, it could blunt a great deal of the ongoing fallout.

The work is an act of contrition for mistakes he initially made and a deeply felt caution to all who report and read breaking news.