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🇨🇳Chinese Source WordCode: ZH

尴尬

Pronunciation / Transliteration: gāngà

🇬🇧 Direct English Meaning:
Embarrassment/ɪmˈbær.əfs.mənt/
nounCEFR B2 (Upper)Top #2450 frequency
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🇨🇳 Example Sentence in Chinese:

"他在聚会上感到尴尬。"

Comprehensive Definitions & Senses

2 senses
As noun
  1. 1

    A feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness.

    "She felt a wave of embarrassment when she realized she had forgotten her lines."
  2. 2

    A person or thing causing a feeling of self-consciousness or shame.

    "His clumsiness at the party was a source of embarrassment for him."
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Thesaurus & Semantic Spectrum

Antonyms & Contrasting Words (1)

Linguistic Origin & Historical Etymology

Derived from the French 'embarrasser', which traces back to the Spanish 'embarazar' and ultimately to the Portuguese 'embaraçar' (meaning to tangle or obstruct, from 'barra', a bar). Over time, the physical sense of being blocked or hindered evolved into the psychological feeling of self-consciousness, awkwardness, and social discomfiture.

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