Word family noun embarrassment adjective embarrassed embarrassing verb embarrass adverb embarrassingly
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishembarrassingem‧bar‧ras‧sing /ɪmˈbærəsɪŋ/ ●●● S3 adjective EMBARRASSEDmaking you feel ashamed, nervous, or uncomfortable She asked a lot of embarrassing questions. an embarrassing situationembarrassing for This incident is deeply embarrassing for the government. —embarrassingly adverb an embarrassingly poor performanceExamples from the Corpus
embarrassing• They all stood around staring at her and smiling awkwardly, as if she was embarrassing.• This has become an annual embarrassing exercise.• It was so embarrassing - I couldn't remember his name!• They didn't seem prepared to say anything that might appear embarrassing or gauche later on.• The doctor asked me a lot of embarrassing questions about my sex life.• She asked a lot of embarrassing questions.• If discussing mixed messages would be embarrassing, then publicly testing for the validity of these explanations would be even more so.• And they will continue to be exposed until they become too embarrassing to even mention.• The revelations about the President's university life were to prove deeply embarrassing to him.embarrassing situation• How do you get out of such an embarrassing situation?• Look, we were in an embarrassing situation.• Reynolds felt gritty and smeared, at an unhappy disadvantage if he should have to lie his way out of an embarrassing situation.• What was your most embarrassing situation?• This is acceptable when only the family are around, but when we have guests, embarrassing situations can arise.• It was an embarrassing situation, more so for them than for us.• If this does happen the interviewer will have a rather embarrassing situation to overcome before going any further.• Otherwise she felt certain he'd dismiss the whole embarrassing situation with a careless sneer. 