EMBARRASSMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does embarrassment mean? 

• EMBARRASSMENT (noun)
  The noun EMBARRASSMENT has 4 senses:

1. the shame you feel when your inadequacy or guilt is made public

2. the state of being embarrassed (usually by some financial inadequacy)

3. some event that causes someone to be embarrassed

4. extreme excess

  Familiarity information: EMBARRASSMENT used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EMBARRASSMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The shame you feel when your inadequacy or guilt is made public

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("embarrassment" is a kind of...):

shame (a painful emotion resulting from an awareness of inadequacy or guilt)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "embarrassment"):

self-consciousness; uncomfortableness; uneasiness (embarrassment deriving from the feeling that others are critically aware of you)

shamefacedness; sheepishness (feeling embarrassed about yourself)

chagrin; humiliation; mortification (strong feelings of embarrassment)

confusion; discombobulation (a feeling of embarrassment that leaves you confused)

abashment; bashfulness (feeling embarrassed due to modesty)

discomfiture; discomposure; disconcertion; disconcertment (anxious embarrassment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The state of being embarrassed (usually by some financial inadequacy)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

he is currently suffering financial embarrassments

Hypernyms ("embarrassment" is a kind of...):

emotional state; spirit (the state of a person's emotions (especially with regard to pleasure or dejection))

Sense 3

Meaning:

Some event that causes someone to be embarrassed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Context example:

the outcome of the vote was an embarrassment for the liberals

Hypernyms ("embarrassment" is a kind of...):

trouble (an event causing distress or pain)

Antonym:

disembarrassment (something that extricates you from embarrassment)

Derivation:

embarrass (cause to be embarrassed; cause to feel self-conscious)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Extreme excess

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

embarrassment; overplus; plethora; superfluity

Context example:

an embarrassment of riches

Hypernyms ("embarrassment" is a kind of...):

excess; excessiveness; inordinateness (immoderation as a consequence of going beyond sufficient or permitted limits)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "embarrassment"):

redundance; redundancy (the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded)

 Context examples 

He forgot his embarrassment in his admiration, and it was her turn to flush and feel uncomfortable.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I noticed the anxious light in Johnson’s eyes, but mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I beg your pardon, said he, with some embarrassment; I suppose I should have knocked.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

After a moment's embarrassment the lady replied, You are too much a man of the world not to see with the eyes of the world.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment:—You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The character of his manner was embarrassment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He too was much distressed; and they sat down together in a most promising state of embarrassment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q) Caused you embarrassment?

(OAB-q - Caused You Embarrassment, NCI Thesaurus)