Disgraceful

How to spell disgraceful

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disgraceful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disgraceful mean?

1. adjectiveShockingly bad or shameful; deserving strong disapproval.

Disgraceful in a sentence

• The manager called the team's behaviour at the conference disgraceful.

• Leaving the customers waiting for three hours was simply disgraceful.

Where does disgraceful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The heart of this word is grace, which English took in the 1200s from the Old French grace, itself from the Latin gratia, meaning 'favour, kindness, or pleasing quality', built on the root gratus 'pleasing, thankful'. The noun disgrace was assembled in the 1500s, partly through the Italian disgrazia and French disgrace, by attaching the reversing prefix dis- to grace, so the literal sense was 'loss of favour', especially the favour of a ruler or society. The adjective disgraceful then formed within English by adding the native ending -ful, meaning 'full of', so it describes conduct that is full of disgrace, that is, shameful enough to cost someone their good standing. The same gratia root sits behind a whole family of relatives, including gracious, gratitude, grateful, and even gratis. The spelling trap is that the calm 'grace' inside it is spelled exactly as the standalone word, with a soft c and a silent e, even though no e is heard before the -ful.

How the word is built

• dis- (reversal, lack of)
• grace (favour, honour, from Latin gratia)
• -ful (adjective: full of)