ashamed
Americanadjective
-
feeling shame; distressed or embarrassed by feelings of guilt, foolishness, or disgrace.
He felt ashamed for having spoken so cruelly.
- Antonyms:
- proud
-
unwilling or restrained because of fear of shame, ridicule, or disapproval.
They were ashamed to show their work.
- Antonyms:
- proud
-
Chiefly Midland U.S. (especially of children) bashful; timid.
adjective
-
overcome with shame, guilt, or remorse
-
(foll by of) suffering from feelings of inferiority or shame in relation to (a person, thing, or deed)
-
(foll by to) unwilling through fear of humiliation, shame, etc
Related Words
Ashamed, humiliated, mortified refer to a condition or feeling of discomfort or embarrassment. Ashamed focuses on the sense of one's own responsibility for an act, whether it is foolish, improper, or immoral: He was ashamed of his dishonesty. She was ashamed of her mistake. Humiliated stresses a feeling of being humbled or disgraced, without any necessary implication of guilt: He was humiliated by the king. Both words are used equally in situations in which one is felt to be responsible for the actions of another: Robert felt humiliated by his daughter's behavior. Mom was ashamed of the way I looked. Mortified represents an intensification of the feelings implied by the other two words: She was mortified by her clumsiness.
Other Word Forms
- ashamedly adverb
- ashamedness noun
- half-ashamed adjective
- half-ashamedly adverb
Etymology
Origin of ashamed
First recorded before 1000; originally past participle of earlier ashame (verb) “to be ashamed,” Middle English, Old English āscamian, equivalent to ā- a prefix + scamian “to shame”; a- 3, shame
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An online content creator who has a compulsive hair-pulling disorder says others with the condition "shouldn't be ashamed" or "feel embarrassed".
From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026
Sean Penn, Hollywood's eternal rebel, on Sunday won a third Oscar for his comic yet terrifying portrayal of an absurdly uptight soldier ashamed of his past in "One Battle After Another."
From Barron's • Mar. 16, 2026
“I feel ashamed and think about those other women all the time,” Pozhidaeva said.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026
I miss a place that did not make me feel ashamed about my most outlandish yearnings and dreams.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 12, 2026
He was even more ashamed of the way he had treated his little relatives.
From "Ralph S. Mouse" by Beverly Cleary
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
