embarrassment.

1. Discomfort caused by feeling awkward, exposed, or socially out of place.

2. A person or situation that causes social discomfort, inconvenience, or reputational trouble.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• acute embarrassment
• cause embarrassment

On the page

His praise caused more embarrassment than pleasure.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Countable or uncountable by context; countable singular embarrassment; plural embarrassments. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.