Word.ws English Dictionary

shaming

UK/ˈʃeɪm.ɪŋ/

shaming is the present participle and gerund of shame.

Meaning of shame

Verb

shame (third-person singular simple present shames, present participle shaming, simple past and past participle shamed)

  1. (transitive) To cause to feel shame.
    • I was shamed by the teacher's public disapproval.
  2. (transitive) To cover with reproach or ignominy; to dishonor; to disgrace.
    • And with fowle cowardize his carcas ſhame,1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 13, page 295
  3. (transitive) To denounce as having done something shameful; to criticize with the intent or effect of causing a feeling of shame.
    • Stop shaming others about their food choices.
  4. (transitive) To drive or compel by shame.
    • The politician was shamed into resigning.
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) To feel shame, be ashamed.
    • Broder she said I can not telle yow For it was not done by me nor by myn assente
      For he is my lord and I am his
      and he must be myn husband
      therfore my broder I wille that ye wete I shame me not to be with hym
      nor to doo hym alle the pleasyr that I can1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter XXII, in Le Morte Darthur, book VII
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To mock at; to deride.
    • Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 14:6

See all 15 meanings of shame

Noun

shaming (countable and uncountable, plural shamings)

  1. The activity by which somebody is shamed.

Forms of shaming

pluralshamings

Words formed from shaming

Phrases with shaming

Words that rhyme with shaming

Questions about shaming

What does shaming mean?
Shaming means the activity by which somebody is shamed.
What is shaming the present participle and gerund of?
Shaming is the present participle and gerund of shame.
What part of speech is shaming?
Shaming is a noun.
How do you pronounce shaming?
Shaming is pronounced /ˈʃeɪm.ɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of shaming?
The plural of shaming is shamings.

Words near shaming in the dictionary

  1. shamianas
  2. Shamika
  3. Shamil
  4. Shamima
  5. Shamima's Law
  6. shaming
  7. shamingly
  8. shamings
  9. Shamir
  10. Shamis
  11. shamisen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shaming (page history and authors); shame (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-shaming.ogg.

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