Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act or an instance of embarrassing.
- noun The state of being embarrassed.
- noun A source or cause of being embarrassed.
- noun An overabundance.
- noun Financial difficulty.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Perplexity; intricacy; entanglement; involvement, as by debt or unfavorable circumstances.
- noun Perplexity or confusion of mind; bewilderment; discomposure; abashment.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun 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.
- noun Difficulty or perplexity arising from the want of money to pay debts.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A state of
discomfort arising frombashfulness or consciousness of having violated a social rule;humiliation . - noun A state of
confusion arising fromhesitation or difficulty in choosing. - noun A person or thing which is the cause of
humiliation to another. - noun medicine Impairment of function due to disease: respiratory embarrassment.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun extreme excess
- noun the state of being embarrassed (usually by some financial inadequacy)
- noun the shame you feel when your inadequacy or guilt is made public
- noun some event that causes someone to be embarrassed
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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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 2009
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She's from Idaho, not Alaska and we can be thankful one more political embarrassment is off the stage, hopefully sue
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What's an embarrassment is the MN State GOP making such a statement.
MN GOP calls Franken-Lieberman incident an 'embarrassment' 2009
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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.
MN GOP calls Franken-Lieberman incident an 'embarrassment' 2009
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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.
MN GOP calls Franken-Lieberman incident an 'embarrassment' 2009
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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.
Europe's Bad Bank Mats Persson 2011
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Governor Sanford's greatest self-embarrassment is his self-righteous condemnation of others 'behavior.
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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.
superversive: Quotha superversive 2010
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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.
Europe's Bad Bank Mats Persson 2011
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The only embarrassment is the GOP's continued hypocrisy and their obstructionist tactics.
MN GOP calls Franken-Lieberman incident an 'embarrassment' 2009
sonofgroucho commented on the word embarrassment
I always feel this word should have just one 'r'. Does anyone else agree?
June 24, 2007
reesetee commented on the word embarrassment
It does seem to have an embarrassment of Rs.... ;-)
June 24, 2007
she commented on the word embarrassment
Yes. Embarrassment sounds like someone saying 'embarassment' with a piratey accent.
July 11, 2008
dontcry commented on the word embarrassment
I always thought it should be spelled: embareassment, 'cause that's what I think it really means.
July 11, 2008
bilby commented on the word embarrassment
This week is Bear Ass Week on Wordie, didn't you know?
July 11, 2008