Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or an instance of embarrassing.
- n. The state of being embarrassed.
- n. A source or cause of being embarrassed.
- n. An overabundance: an embarrassment of choices at a buffet dinner; an embarrassment of riches.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Perplexity; intricacy; entanglement; involvement, as by debt or unfavorable circumstances.
- n. Perplexity or confusion of mind; bewilderment; discomposure; abashment.
Wiktionary
- n. A state of discomfort arising from bashfulness or consciousness of having violated a social rule; humiliation.
- n. A state of confusion arising from hesitation or difficulty in choosing.
- n. A person or thing which is the cause of humiliation to another.
- n. medicine Impairment of function due to disease: respiratory embarrassment.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A state of being embarrassed; perplexity; impediment to freedom of action; entanglement; hindrance; confusion or discomposure of mind, as from not knowing what to do or to say; disconcertedness.
- n. Difficulty or perplexity arising from the want of money to pay debts.
WordNet 3.0
- n. extreme excess
- n. the state of being embarrassed (usually by some financial inadequacy)
- n. the shame you feel when your inadequacy or guilt is made public
- n. some event that causes someone to be embarrassed
Etymologies
- From embarrass + -ment (Wiktionary)
Examples
“I think when Chesterton wrote that, if someone were to actually say, "That is wicked," the Journalists would shuffle their feet in embarrassment, but generally not dispute the obvious truth.”
“Governor Sanford's greatest self-embarrassment is his self-righteous condemnation of others 'behavior.”
“But while keeping up the charade may be saving the ECB some short-term embarrassment, its existing policies of propping up insolvent banks and governments are only increasing the cost of the euro-zone crisis in the long term.”
“What's an embarrassment is the MN State GOP making such a statement.”
“After President Obama forgave Lieberman for attacking his character and good intentions during 2008 presidential campaign, especially in light of Democratic Legislatures preference to terminate Lieberman's political career, the embarrassment is solely on "Joe the Jerk" Lieberman.”
“The only embarrassment is the GOP's continued hypocrisy and their obstructionist tactics.”
“If you were a competent analyst and were told that by a company, would you (a) crawl into a hole in embarrassment at being a simpleton and give the company you couldn't understand a glowing rating; or (b) downgrade the company?”
Malcolm Gladwell on Enron, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“She's from Idaho, not Alaska and we can be thankful one more political embarrassment is off the stage, hopefully sue”
“I was squirming in embarrassment when they never talked to Eddie at all.”
Twilight Lexicon » Kristen Stewart Gives Yellow Hankerchief Interview?
“I think embarrassment is an integral part of the dog training experience.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘embarrassment’.
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catalysts
catalysts leading to action.
aka the inciting incident, point of attack there's no major rules here, broad umbrella terms or specific works for now.
( randomness, writing )trauma, death, tragedy, embarrassment, epiphany, move, literature, brink, poll numbers, innovation, injustice, another headspace and 44 more...
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o..., abject,utterly ho... and 2228 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., dispensing of all..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o... and 2229 more...
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Words I assumed I had not been misspe...
Catching a misspelling is both pleasurable (hooray learning!) and painful (every sentence you now realize you've ever marred with the offending word flashes to mind in one terrible instant).
...separate, exercise, a lot, all right, cemetery, consensus, supersede, playwright, noticeable, perseverance, medieval, gauge and 88 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., dispensing of all..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o... and 2229 more...
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praveen kumar
hi, tradition, description, tolerate, embarrassment, organisational, although, contemporary, contender, intimidation, poverty, groom and 53 more...
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Feelings [Emotions]
Feelings...nothing more than a list of words about feelings.
indifference, detachment, apathy, shock, affection, euphoric, euphoria, contentment, gratification, embarrassment, perplexity, uneasiness and 6 more...
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Triple Doubles and Other Multiples
inopportune, poussette, clapperless, shoelessness, didgeridoo, sheesh, storyteller, frontierless, slaughterhouse, enfeoff, plantagenet, blunderbuss and 36 more...
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Words I Never Spell Correctly
mississippi, ecstasy, calendar, embarrassment, ugly, exaggeration, dreech
Tweets
Looking for tweets for embarrassment.
bilby This week is Bear Ass Week on Wordie, didn't you know? Jul 11, 2008
dontcry I always thought it should be spelled: embareassment, 'cause that's what I think it really means. Jul 11, 2008
she Yes. Embarrassment sounds like someone saying 'embarassment' with a piratey accent. Jul 11, 2008
reesetee It does seem to have an embarrassment of Rs.... ;-) Jun 24, 2007
sonofgroucho I always feel this word should have just one 'r'. Does anyone else agree? Jun 24, 2007