shamed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of shame.

   The scandal shamed the entire family for years afterward.

   He was publicly shamed for cheating his business partners.

   Note

   One regular -ed spelling does double duty. "The scandal shamed them" is the past tense, and "they were shamed" is the participle building a passive. Every living use is transitive, so the passive comes easily. One construction deserves notice: shamed into, as in "shamed into returning the money," from the sense of driving someone by shame. The intransitive "felt ashamed" and the sense "mocked at" are obsolete.

   She was finally shamed into returning the money.

   The neighbors shamed him into apologizing to the whole street.

2. 2
   adjective

   Made to feel disgrace, guilt, or embarrassment, especially after being publicly exposed or criticized.

   The shamed executive resigned within hours of the report's release.

   He offered a shamed apology and could not meet anyone's eyes.

   Similardisgraced, humiliated, ashamed, embarrassed, mortified

   Oppositeproud

   Note

   As an adjective it names a lasting state rather than an act, and it does not take degrees: a person is shamed, not "more shamed." It also travels from the person to what the person shows. Anthony Burgess, in Beds in the East (1959), has a character turn only his "shamed back" to the household. The posture carries the disgrace, much as a face, a silence or an apology can.

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