abash

UK/əˈbæʃ//əˈbæʃ/

abash verb: to make ashamed; to embarrass; to destroy the self-possession of, as by exciting suddenly a consciousness of guilt, mistake, or inferiority; to disconcert; to discomfit.

Verb

abash (third-person singular simple present abashes, present participle abashing, simple past and past participle abashed)

(transitive) To make ashamed; to embarrass; to destroy the self-possession of, as by exciting suddenly a consciousness of guilt, mistake, or inferiority; to disconcert; to discomfit.
- He was a man whom no check could abash1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XIV, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and...
- The stare seemed to abash Poirot.1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 129
Synonyms:

bewilder, confuse, confound, daunt, discompose, disconcert, discountenance, dishearten, embarrass, faze

Antonyms:

abet, animate, buoy, cheer, countenance, embolden, encourage, incite, inspirit, rally
(intransitive, obsolete) To lose self-possession; to become ashamed.
- [...] as King Uther lay by his queen, he asked her, by the faith she owed to him, whose was the body; then she sore abashed to give answer.1485 July 31, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter III, in William Caxton, editor, Le Morte d'Arthur, volume 1

abash meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

abash in Tamil

வெட்கப்படுத்து, தலைகுனியச் செய், கூசப்பண்ணு, நாணவை, குழப்பம் உண்டுபண்ணு

abash in Bengali

লজ্জিত করা, বিব্রত করা, আত্মবিশ্বাস নষ্ট করে দেওয়া, অপরাধবোধ, হীনম্মন্যতা, আত্মবিশ্বাস হারানো

abash in Malayalam

പരിഭ്രമിപ്പിക്കുക, നാണിപ്പിക്കുക, ലജ്ജിതമായ, ലജ്ജിപ്പിക്കുക, വിഷമിപ്പിക്കുക, നാണംകുണുങ്ങുക

More languagesFewer languages

abash in Kannada: ಮುಖಭಂಗಮಾಡು, ತೇಜೋವಧೆಮಾಡು, ಅವಮಾನಮಾಡು

Synonyms of abash

18 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

4 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of abash

Forms of abash

third-person singular present	abashes
present participle	abashing
past participle	abashed
past	abashed
alternative form	abasse

Origin of abash

Attested from 1303, as Middle English abaisen, abaishen, abashen (“lose one's composure, be upset”), from the later 14th-century also transitive "to make ashamed, to perplex or embarrass"; from Anglo-Norman abaïss, from Middle French abair, abaisser (“lose one's composure, be startled, be stunned”), from Old French esbaïr, (French ébahir), from es- (“utterly”) + baïr (“to astonish”), from Medieval Latin *exbadō, from ex- (“out of”) + bado (“to gape, yawn”), an onomatopoeic word imitating a yawn, see also French badaud (“rubbernecker”).

Words formed from abash

Words that rhyme with abash

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about abash

What does abash mean?: Abash means to make ashamed; to embarrass; to destroy the self-possession of, as by exciting suddenly a consciousness of guilt, mistake, or inferiority; to disconcert; to discomfit.
What is abash in Tamil?: Abash in Tamil is வெட்கப்படுத்து, தலைகுனியச் செய், கூசப்பண்ணு. See Abash meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is abash?: Abash is a verb.
How do you pronounce abash?: Abash is pronounced /əˈbæʃ/ (UK).
What is the past tense of abash?: The past tense of abash is abashed.

Words near abash in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: abash (page history and authors); abash (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abash (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abash (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abash (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abash (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-abash.ogg, en-ca-abash.ogg.

Cite this entry: “abash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.