DISGRACEFUL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does disgraceful mean? 

• DISGRACEFUL (adjective)
  The adjective DISGRACEFUL has 2 senses:

1. giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation

2. (used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame

  Familiarity information: DISGRACEFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISGRACEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation

Synonyms:

disgraceful; scandalous; shameful; shocking

Context example:

the most shocking book of its time

Similar:

immoral (deliberately violating accepted principles of right and wrong)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame

Synonyms:

black; disgraceful; ignominious; inglorious; opprobrious; shameful

Context example:

a shameful display of cowardice

Similar:

dishonorable; dishonourable (lacking honor or integrity; deserving dishonor)

Derivation:

disgracefulness (unworthiness meriting public disgrace and dishonor)

 Context examples 

“And whose appearance,” interposed his sister, directing general attention to me in my indefinable costume, “is perfectly scandalous and disgraceful.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As he loved his cousin, however, there was an excellent explanation why he should retain her secret—the more so as the secret was a disgraceful one.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is disgraceful to us if it does.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

No, he would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once, than remain in it on such disgraceful terms.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Yes, sir, I have, but the shock of this disgraceful exposure has bewildered me.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I should have said, 'consider what you are doing. You are making a most disgraceful connection, and such a one as your family are unanimous in disapproving.'

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Then I would make a fact so disgraceful known, and boldly challenge society to set it right.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)