Ashamed is a feeling of guilt, embarrassment, or remorse about one’s own actions or something that reflects negatively on oneself. It implies a self-conscious distress that arises from perceived impropriety or failure to meet personal or social standards. The word signals internal emotion, often accompanied by a desire to hide or correct the behavior.
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"She felt ashamed after forgetting her friend’s birthday."
"He was ashamed of his outburst during the meeting."
"The crowd watched the player with ashamed silence after the controversial call."
"They were ashamed to admit they had made a mistake and asked for help."
Ashamed derives from the adjective ashamed, formed from the Old English word a- in the sense of ‘in, on, at’ plus sceamd (shame, disgrace), from Proto-Germanic *skaimu- ‘shame’. The earliest forms tracked in Old English include a- + sceam(e) with the sense of feeling inferiority or dishonor. Over time, the prefix a- faded in pronunciation and spelling, while the core word sceame (shame) shifted to form the past participle and the modern adjective ashamed. The semantic trajectory moves from a state of moral wrongdoing or stain to a personal emotional reaction of embarrassment. By Middle English, ashamed commonly described individuals experiencing guilt or exposure due to behavior, with usage expanding to social contexts of disgrace. In today’s English, ashamed retains its introspective, affective sense, often used with objects or events that reflect poorly on the self, and it appears in idiomatic phrases like “ashamed to admit” and “ashamed of.” The word thus bridges moral judgment and self-conscious emotion, remaining tightly linked to the social evaluation of one’s actions.
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "ashamed" and can often be used interchangeably.
🔄 These words have opposite meanings to "ashamed" and show contrast in usage.
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Words that rhyme with "ashamed"
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Practice with these rhyming pairs to improve your pronunciation consistency:
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Say /əˈʃeɪmd/. The first syllable is unstressed /ə/ (uh), the second syllable bears primary stress: /ʃeɪmd/ where /ʃ/ is the “sh” sound, /eɪ/ is the long a as in “face,” and /m/ followed by a final /d/. Keep the /eɪ/ elongated slightly, then land the /d/ with a light release. You’ll often hear it as uh-SHAYMD in natural speech.
Common errors include misplacing stress (saying a-SHAMED), mispronouncing the long /eɪ/ as a short /e/ or /ɛ/ (ash-æmd), and dropping the final /d/ or making it sound like /t/. Correction: keep primary stress on the second syllable, pronounce /eɪ/ as a clear long vowel (like in “face”), and end with a voiced /d/ with a soft release.
Across accents, the /eɪ/ vowel in /ʃeɪm/ remains fairly consistent, but rhotic variations may affect preceding vowels in linked forms. US tends to show a slightly tighter vowel quality with clear /ɪ/ vs /eɪ/ distinctions in fast speech; UK often preserves a more clipped, even /eɪ/; AU may show broader, more relaxed vowel duration and slight vowel reduction in rapid speech. The /ʃ/ remains constant in all three.
The difficulty comes from combining a palatal-velar /ʃ/ with a long diphthong /eɪ/ and a voiced stop /d/ at the end, which can blur in rapid speech. Some learners compress /eɪ/ to /e/ or misplace the /d/, producing /ʃæmd/ or /ʃeɪmd/ with weak final stop. Focusing on the clear /ʃ/ onset, keeping /eɪ/ as a distinct diphthong, and finishing with a crisp /d/ helps.
A key nuance is the exact placement of stress and linking with surrounding sounds in fluent speech. In phrases like “ashamed to admit,” the /d/ can link into the following word, sometimes causing a subtle assimilation if the next word begins with a consonant. Maintain a clear boundary and avoid running the /d/ into the following sound unless linking is natural.
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