SHAMEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does shameful mean? 

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

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

2. giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation

  Familiarity information: SHAMEFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHAMEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

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:

shamefulness (unworthiness meriting public disgrace and dishonor)

Sense 2

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)

Derivation:

shamefulness (unworthiness meriting public disgrace and dishonor)

 Context examples 

It would have been shameful to fail after spending so much time and money, when everyone knew that you could do well.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“And tell that to ME,” she added, “with your shameful lips? Why don't they whip these creatures? If I could order it to be done, I would have this girl whipped to death.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Who hath served thee in so shameful a fashion?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If it was not love, it was too shameful.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

"My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a very shameful and degrading connexion.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

His secret was a shameful one, and he could not bring himself to divulge it.

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

He himself slept peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet that awaited him.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The glory of heroism, of usefulness, of exertion, of endurance, made his own habits of selfish indulgence appear in shameful contrast; and he wished he had been a William Price, distinguishing himself and working his way to fortune and consequence with so much self-respect and happy ardour, instead of what he was!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)