noun

• 1A feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness.

  ‘I turned red with embarrassment’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Feelings of expectation, embarrassment, distress and emotional harm vary according to the individual.’
  • ‘Pauline said today she feared that embarrassment and shame could be stopping Christine and Nicholas from contacting her.’
  • ‘I felt a lot of shame, embarrassment and humiliation, I lived with all that for years.’
  • ‘This is a highly readable and strangely affecting comedy of embarrassment, resentment, grief and love.’
  • ‘They boast of getting ‘wrecked’ at weekends as a matter of pride rather than shame or embarrassment.’
  • ‘A lot of women still feel embarrassment and shame about their own desires.’
  • ‘Horror, shock, embarrassment, confusion and sadness all swept across at the same time.’
  • ‘It evoked feelings of nostalgia, embarrassment and wonder at how I was thinking then.’
  • ‘As the addiction can be accompanied by feelings of shame and embarrassment, sufferers often find it difficult to seek help.’
  • ‘I wondered how much of this self-conscious embarrassment was induced by a few days in the surroundings of Oxford.’
  • ‘Along with embarrassment and guilt, shame is one of the emotions that motivate moral behaviour.’
  • ‘It will be profound, a mixture of embarrassment, shame and a huge feeling of emptiness.’
  • ‘The actions of the fans were disrespectful, and they have brought shame and embarrassment on their club, and on this country.’
  • ‘Boys, to Nina's shame and embarrassment, were a constant preoccupation.’
  • ‘Compulsions are obvious to an observer and can cause considerable shame and embarrassment.’
  • ‘He looks around and is consumed by acute embarrassment, even shame, at what he sees.’
  • ‘This to me sounds like some gay people feel shame or embarrassment in having a partner of the same sex.’
  • ‘Today I have no pride, no faith, only embarrassment, anger, and frustration.’
  • ‘I put down my music, eyes pricking and throat closing up with anxiety, rage, confusion and embarrassment.’
  • ‘The embarrassment and shame it brings on the family means people are keeping quiet and women are being cocooned in their homes.’

  Synonyms

  awkwardness, self-consciousness, unease, uneasiness, discomfort, discomfiture, edginess

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  1. 1.1count noun A person or thing causing feelings of embarrassment.
     ‘he was an embarrassment who was safely left ignored’
     More example sentences

     • ‘her extreme views might be an embarrassment to the movement’
     • ‘Supporters of devolution have become inured to setbacks, diversions, embarrassments, disappointments and shocks.’
     • ‘But the family story, with all its problems, embarrassments and dysfunctional members, still has its universal appeal, at home and abroad.’
     • ‘Adolescents who are depressed may be hypersensitive and overreact to minor problems or embarrassments.’
     • ‘Despite our loser basketball players, and a few other embarrassments, it's been difficult to quell the American spirit.’
     • ‘The theft follows other recent embarrassments to the department, specifically, allegations of cheating and irregularities in test scoring.’
     • ‘The current director resigned amid a series of scandalous embarrassments involving children that were supposed to be in Florida's care.’
     • ‘Don't allow the planners to be carried away with pretentious, pie-in-the-sky ideas which will become the rubbish-strewn embarrassments of the future.’
     • ‘After several years of headaches, embarrassments and controversies, the Nunavut department of education can report at least one piece of good news.’
     • ‘Clearly, the career people in the intel community are feeling emboldened by the White House's recent Iraq embarrassments.’
     • ‘On both the foreign policy and the fiscal fronts, the Bush administration is trying to rewrite history, to explain away its current embarrassments.’
     • ‘Following several previous embarrassments, the city is expected to nix its deal with the company and resume parking responsibilities itself.’
     • ‘The continuing embarrassments culminated in the most public of Europe's failures, ‘safe havens’.’
     • ‘Their fashion embarrassments involved medallions and leisure suits, ours were about greasy hair, Kodiaks and lumberjackets.’
     • ‘Now, less prone to the pervasive embarrassments of adolescence, her emotional appreciation of the book is simply a memory.’
     • ‘Among other embarrassments: the firms were run by felons and hired felons to make the pro-law enforcement pitch.’
     • ‘Well, certainly those would be embarrassments for the president.’
     • ‘‘Three embarrassments on top of one another seems too much,’ one source close to the Cabinet conceded last night.’
     • ‘Put together three unrelated embarrassments on a single day and all the good that has been achieved since 1997 is supposed to be overshadowed and forgotten.’
  2. 1.2Financial difficulty.
     ‘his temporary financial embarrassment’
     More example sentences

     • ‘He cannot say he was unprepared for York council's financial embarrassment.’
     Synonyms

     difficulty, predicament, plight, problem, mess, entanglement, imbroglio

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