shaming

Pluralshamings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of making someone feel ashamed of something they have done or of who they are.

   Like a village locking someone in the stocks so the whole town can mock them.

   Body shaming remains a serious problem on many social platforms.

   The public shaming of the official drew sharp criticism from rights groups.

   Similarhumiliation, denunciation, stigmatization

   Note

   A true noun, not just the verb wearing -ing: it takes articles and adjectives (a public shaming) and has a plural, shamings. That is the quick way to tell it from the verb form, which takes its object directly (shaming offenders). The noun links to the person through of instead: the shaming of offenders.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shame.

   The article accused the company of shaming its own employees.

   Critics argued that publicly shaming offenders rarely changes their behavior.

   Note

   Every living use of the verb behind this form is transitive. Someone is always being shamed, whether the point is making them feel ashamed, disgracing them, publicly denouncing them, or pushing them to act through shame. Older English also let shame stand alone, meaning 'to feel ashamed', or used it to mean 'to mock'. Both uses are now obsolete, so shaming with no one on the receiving end reads oddly today.

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