Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Embarrassing |
EmbarrassingAdjective1. Hard to deal with; especially causing pain or embarrassment; "awkward (or embarrassing or difficult) moments in the discussion"; "an awkward pause followed his remark"; "a sticky question"; "in the unenviable position of resorting to an act he had planned to save for the climax of the campaign". 2. Causing to feel shame or chagrin or vexation; "the embarrassing moment when she found her petticoat down around her ankles"; "it was mortifying to know he had heard every word". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "embarrassing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1657. (references) |
Synonyms: EmbarrassingSynonyms: awkward (adj), mortifying (adj), sticky (adj), unenviable (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Difficulty | Embarrassing, perplexing; (uncertain); delicate, ticklish, critical; beset with difficulties, full of difficulties, surrounded by difficulties, entangled by difficulties, encompassed with difficulties. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Embarrassing |
| English words defined with "embarrassing": ambiguous, awkward, awkwardness ♦ blackmailer, bloomer, blooper, blunder, boner, boo-boo, botch, bungle ♦ cover-up ♦ disconcertingly ♦ equivocal, extortioner, extortionist ♦ flub, foul-up ♦ imbroglio, In a box, inconvenience ♦ misstep, mortifying ♦ nuisance value ♦ patent ♦ quick-witted ♦ sticky, stumble, sweep under the rug ♦ trap, trip ♦ unenviable. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "embarrassing": brown-paper-bag bug ♦ Caterpillar ♦ Demand ♦ Employee ♦ Halloween Documents ♦ LOVER ♦ Mortgage ♦ Nearsighted ♦ Ping O' Death ♦ Smith Charm ♦ Wrath's Hole. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Hogarth? That's an embarrassing name (The Iron Giant; writing credit: Brad Bird) It's kind of embarrassing. (Mulholland Dr.; writing credit: David Lynch) Embolism in a pool, what an embarrassing way to die. (Clerks.; writing credit: Kevin Smith) It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever done, and I once rode a unicycle wearing a tutu (Dr. Dolittle 2; writing credit: Larry Levin) Marriage is just a way of getting out of an embarrassing pause in conversation (Four Weddings and a Funeral; writing credit: Richard Curtis) | |
Lyrics | Embarrassing position of being unable to do your child's arithmetic homework (New Math; performing artist: Tom Lehrer) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Embarrassing Moments (1934) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The government might provide Capone's jury with false faces, to prevent future embarrassing situations. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Spring pastimes. It certainly is embarrassing -- when the house painter ... Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Katharine Hepburn | It's a business you go into because your an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession. |
Paul Newman | The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is out-grossing my films. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | All of this can be frustrating, embarrassing, and even dangerous. (references) | |
Although having gas is common, it can be uncomfortable and embarrassing. (references) | ||
Once narcolepsy is diagnosed, stimulants, antidepressants, or other drugs can help control the symptoms and prevent the embarrassing and dangerous effects of falling asleep at improper times. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Syria | They usually prevent the publication or distribution of any material deemed threatening or embarrassing by the security services to high levels of the Government. (references) |
Brunei | Editions of foreign newspapers or magazines with articles that were found objectionable, embarrassing, or critical of the Sultan, royal family, or government at times were not allowed into the country. (references) | |
Belarus | The European Humanities University, one of the country's leading independent universities, reportedly has asked students to refine or rethink dissertation topics if that topic is likely to be embarrassing to the regime. (references) | |
Political Economy | Sudan | The authorities permitted only government-authorized gatherings and routinely denied permission for or disrupted gatherings they view as politically oriented or potentially critical of or embarrassing to the Government or the ruling NC party. (references) |
Morocco | In July the Government quickly prosecuted on extremely questionable grounds a former intelligence agent who had made embarrassing assertions regarding the disappearance from Paris in 1965 of socialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka, a leading socialist and opposition figure. (references) | |
Travel | Vietnam | It is very important to try not to put your Vietnamese counterparts in an embarrassing situation or one that calls for public back tracking. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
John Adams | 1797-1801 | Any serious and permanent injury to commerce would not fail to produce the most embarrassing disorders. |
Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | We can not embarrass or cut off the trade of France without at the same time in some degree embarrassing or cutting off our own trade. |
Rutherford Hayes | 1877-1881 | Difficult and embarrassing questions meet us at the threshold of this subject. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Embarrassing" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 97.07% of the time. "Embarrassing" is used about 920 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 97.07% | 893 | 7,992 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 2.93% | 27 | 66,962 |
| Total | 100.00% | 920 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "embarrassing": be embarrassing ♦ embarrassing question ♦ embarrassing questions ♦ embarrassing scene ♦ laugh off an embarrassing situation. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "embarrassing": embarrassing-if, embarrassing-sounding. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "embarrassing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sikletosës, i ngatërruar (embroiled, entangled, haywire, immersed, involved, knotty, labyrinthine, mixed, muddy, tangly, tricky, woozy). (various references) | |
Arabic | محير (elusory), مربك (agitating, confounding, confusing, disturbing, perplexing, staggering). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | неудобен (awkward, bulky, comfortless, cramped, incommodious, inconvenient, invidious, self conscious, uncomfortable, unhandy). (various references) | |
Chinese | 難 (hard to endure), 困窘 (Embarrass, Embarrassed). (various references) | |
Czech | trapný (awkward, bothersome, gauche, painful, vexatious, wearing), nepříjemný (annoying, awkward, difficult, disagreeable, irksome, irritating, miserable, nasty, objectionable, sticky, troublesome, uncomfortable, uncongenial, uneasy, unpleasant, unsavory, untoward, vexatious). (various references) | |
Dutch | stopstuk (bulky article, embarrassing packet). (various references) | |
Finnish | tukala (awkward, difficult, hard), piinallinen (awkward, painful). (various references) | |
French | embarrassant, embarassant, gênant. (various references) | |
German | peinlich (awkward, careful, disconcerting, distressing, embarrassingly, lurid, meticulous, mortifying, mortifyingly, nasty, painful, painstaking, scrupulous, scrupulously, uncomfortable). (various references) | |
Greek | στενόχωροσ (incommodious, inconvenient, poky, stringent, uncomfortable). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מביך (baffling, confusing, perplexing, vexing). (various references) | |
Hungarian | zavaró (annoying, blanketing, bothering, disturber, disturbing, incommodious, interfering, irritating, perplexing, unsettling, violator), kínos (awkward, disagreeable, grating, sticky, to sew up sy's stockings, uncomfortable, uneasy). (various references) | |
Indonesian | membingungkan (bewilder, bewildering, disconcert, distract, perplex, perplexing), memalukan (disgraceful, scandalize, shameful). (various references) | |
Italian | imbarazzante. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 照れ臭い (awkward), 照れくさい (awkward). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | てれくさい (awkward). (various references) | |
Korean | 당황하게 함. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | embarrassingay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | embaraçoso (awkward, cloggy, cumbersome, cumbrous, muff, puzzling, straitened), embaraçante, inoportuno (bad, goody, gooey, ill-timed, immature, impertinent, importunate, inadvisable, inapposite, inconvenient, inexpedient, inopportune, not fitting, timeless, uncalled-for, unseasonable, unseemly, unsuitable, untimely). (various references) | |
Romanian | jenant (annoying, awkward, delicate, painful, tedious, troublesome, uncomfortable, uneasy, unpleasant), ambarasant (awkward). (various references) | |
Russian | смущающий (off-putting), неудобно (uncomfortably), затруднительный (awkward, baffling, difficult, nonplussed). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | posramljujući. (various references) | |
Spanish | embarazoso (awkward, cumbersome), preparante a dar la luz, penoso (distressing, grievous, hard, heavy, labored, laborious, laboured, onerous, painful, toilsome, tough), desconcertante (baffling, shaking). (various references) | |
Swedish | genant (awkward). (various references) | |
Turkish | zor duruma sokan, utandırıcı (disgraceful, shameful), can sıkıcı (aggravating, annoying, boring, bothersome, chippy, disagreeable, displeasing, painful, provoking, soul-destroying, soulless, sullen, tedious, unexeciting, vexatious, worrisome, worrying). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | утруднений (labored, laboring, laboured, labouring, stertorous), скрутний (awkward, baffling, difficult, narrow, necessitous, onerous, spiny), бентежний (affecting, baffling, discouraging, puzzling). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | l m lúng túng ngăn trở. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "embarrassing": embarrassingly. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "embarrassing": disembarrassing. (additional references) | |
| |
"Embarrassing" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: embarassing, embaressing, embarrasing, embarressing, embarrising, emberassing, embrassing. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "embarrassing" (pronounced embe"rusing) |
| 5 | -r u s i ng | buttressing. |
| 4 | -u s i ng | canvassing, encompassing, focusing, grimacing, harnessing, menacing, noticing, prejudicing, promising, refocusing, repurchasing, resurfacing, servicing, surfacing, witnessing. |
| 3 | -s i ng | annexing, announcing, accessing, acquiescing, addressing, advancing, affixing, amassing, assessing, balancing, basing, blessing, bouncing, boxing, bracing, busing, bussing, bypassing, caressing, casing, ceasing, chasing, classing, coalescing, coaxing, coercing, collapsing, commencing, compressing, condensing, conferencing, confessing, conversing, convincing, coursing, crisscrossing, crossing, cursing, cussing, dancing, debasing, decreasing, defacing, denouncing, depressing, diagnosing, digressing, disbursing, discussing, dismissing, dispensing, dispersing, displacing, distancing, distressing, divorcing, dosing, dousing, dowsing, dressing, eclipsing, effacing, embracing, endorsing, enforcing, engrossing, enhancing, enticing, erasing, expensing, experiencing, expressing, facing, faxing, fencing, financing, fixing, flexing, forcing, freelancing, fundraising, fussing, gassing, glancing, greasing, grossing, grousing, guessing, hairdressing, harassing, hissing, horsing, icing, impressing, increasing, indexing, inducing, influencing, intermixing, introducing, invoicing, kissing, Lancing, lapsing, leasing, lensing, licensing, loosing, massing, mensing, messing, mincing, missing, mixing, nursing, obsessing, oppressing, outdistancing, outpacing, outsourcing, overproducing, pacing, parsing, passing, perplexing, piecing, piercing, placing, policing, possessing, pouncing, practicing, prancing, pressing, pricing, processing, producing, professing, progressing, pronouncing, pulsing, racing, reassessing, rebalancing, recessing, redressing, reducing, referencing, refinancing, rehearsing, reimbursing, reinforcing, reintroducing, rejoicing, relapsing, relaxing, releasing, reminiscing, renouncing, replacing, repressing, repricing, reprocessing, reproducing, repulsing, retracing, reversing, rinsing, romancing, sacrificing, seducing, sensing, sentencing, sequencing, showcasing, silencing, slicing, sluicing, sourcing, spacing, spicing, splicing, sprucing, stressing, subleasing, suppressing, surpassing, taxing, teleconferencing, tossing, tracing, traipsing, traversing, trespassing, trouncing, unceasing, unconvincing, underpricing, unpromising, vexing, videoconferencing, voicing, waltzing, waxing, wincing, wissing, xeroxing. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-e-g-i-m-n-r-r-s-s" | |
-2 letters: bargainers, margarines. | |
-3 letters: ambergris, amberinas, arginases, bargainer, embarrass, embarring, gramaries, granaries, magnesias, mangabies, margarine, margarins, marriages. | |
-4 letters: amassing, ambaries, amberina, amnesias, anergias, angaries, arginase, armigers, arraigns, arranges, assigner, bargains, bargeman, barrages, bearings, bisnagas, brasiers, brassage, brassier, brassing, breaming, bringers, earrings, gambiers, gaminess, gisarmes, grainers, grassier, grimness, magnesia, managers, margarin, mariners, marriage, massager, megabars. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-e-g-i-m-n-r-r-s-s" | |
+2 letters: embarrassingly. | |
+3 letters: disembarrassing. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Speeches 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
