🇺🇸
/əˈʃemd/
🇺🇸
/əˈʃemd/
🇬🇧
/əˈʃemd/
🇬🇧
/əˈʃemd/
Ashamed is an adjective describing the uncomfortable, heavy feeling you get when you believe you've done something wrong, foolish, or socially unacceptable — like forgetting your best friend's birthday or tripping loudly in front of a crowd. It’s more about internal moral judgment than just surface-level embarrassment.
She felt deeply ashamed after lying to her teacher about the missing homework.
He was too ashamed to apologize in person, so he sent a heartfelt text instead.
I'm ashamed of how I treated my sister during our argument last week.
They were ashamed to admit they hadn't read the book before the discussion.
It's okay to feel ashamed sometimes — what matters is learning and making amends.
shame
Comes from Old English 'scamu' (noun) and 'scamian' (verb), meaning 'a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior'. It is a native Germanic root, not borrowed from Latin or Greek. Core concept: moral discomfort arising from perceived failure, wrongdoing, or social inadequacy. Examples include shame, ashamed, shameless, shaming, self-shame, shameful.