embarrassment

plural embarrassments

1. countableuncountableA state of discomfort arising from bashfulness or consciousness of having violated a social rule; humiliation.

   The desired effect [of affectionate teasing] is a look of pleasurable embarrassment, as if you administered a compliment. Anyone who doesn't stop teasing immediately upon producing real embarrassment, anger or tears is not really teasing.

   1998 February 22, Judith Martin, “Tease and sympathy”, in The Washington Post

2. countableuncountableA person or thing which is the cause of humiliation to another.

   Jack, you are an embarrassment to this family.

   2 more examples

   Losing this highly publicized case was an embarrassment to the firm.

   The audacious hijacking in Paris of a van carrying the baggage of a Saudi prince to his private jet is obviously an embarrassment to the French capital, whose ultra-high-end boutiques have suffered a spate of heists in recent months.

   2014 August 21, “A brazen heist in Paris [print version: International New York Times, 22 August 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times

3. countableuncountableA large collection of good or valuable things, especially one that exceeds requirements or causes some sort of hindrance.

   At one time, I reflected, we'd had an embarrassment of good, qualified squad leader—ready men in the platoon.

   2013, Frank Boccia, The Crouching Beast: A United States Army Lieutenant's Account of the Battle for Hamburger Hill, May 1969, McFarland, →ISBN, page 256

   2 more examples

   There are over 5,000 Americans now in Paris, many artists, singers, musicians, writers, and actors, so many, indeed, the committee could hardly pick a program from an embarrassment of volunteers.

   1914, Collier's, page 30

   The landscape presented an embarrassment of riches for the industrial archaeologist, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century remains were still visible in abundance

   1996, David Morgan Evans, Peter Salway, David Thackray, The Remains of Distant Times: Archaeology and the National Trust, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 188

4. countableuncountableA state of confusion; hesitation; uncertainty.

   […]and render them more intelligible than all the commentaries which have been written on them, for they generally render the authour more obscure, and lead the reader into greater embarrassments, by what they explain, than by what they leave untouched.

   1785, James Ridgway, A Dictionary of Literary Conversation

5. countableuncountablemedicineImpairment of function due to disease: respiratory embarrassment.
6. countabledateduncountableDifficulty in financial matters; poverty.
7. collectivecountableuncountableA group of pandas (ie. red panda, giant panda)

   In Wolong, the captive panda population has increased from just eight bears to 330-the largest embarrassment of pandas in the world.

   2023, Gloria Dickie, Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future, W. W. Norton

   1 more example

   A string of somebody’s little ponies, an embarrassment of pandas, enough dayglow neon to blow out an eardrum and a round of heavy, wet snow contributed Sunday to a rousing first round of closing days for Aspen mountains.

   2018 April 18, David Krause, “Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk end season with parties, bacon. Lots of bacon”, in The Aspen Times, archived from the original on 27 Jul 2026