Shaming

How to spell shaming

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shaming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shaming mean?

1. verbMaking someone feel guilt or disgrace, often publicly, about something they have done or are.
2. nounThe practice or act of making people feel disgrace, especially in public.

Shaming in a sentence

• verb

  The manager believed that publicly shaming employees only damaged morale.

• noun

  Online shaming can spread faster than any apology.

• verb

  The campaign avoided shaming smokers and instead offered them support.

• noun

  The article criticised the culture of public shaming on social media.

Where does shaming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English noun scamu, meaning a feeling of disgrace or humiliation, and its related verb scamian, 'to feel shame'. These belonged to a wider family of Germanic words, and cousins survive in modern Dutch schaamte and German Scham, all carrying the same idea of painful self-consciousness about one's failings. By adding the suffix -ing, English forms the present participle and gerund 'shaming', which has been used for centuries to describe the act of making someone feel disgrace. The familiar modern uses, such as 'body shaming' and 'public shaming', are recent extensions of this very old root. The one spelling point to remember is that the silent e of 'shame' is dropped before -ing, so it is shaming and never shameing.

How the word is built

• sham(e) (Old English scamu: disgrace)
• -ing (forming a present participle or gerund; the silent e is dropped before the suffix)