Other forms: embarrassing, embarrassed, embarrasses
To embarrass somebody is to make them feel awkward and self-conscious. Usually in front of other people, which is the whole point.
The word needs an audience, since almost nothing embarrasses you when you are alone. It also works on institutions, so a leaked document can embarrass a government, and there the meaning is closer to shame than to blushing. Note the spelling, with two r's and two s's, which makes it one of the most misspelled words in English. Financially embarrassed is a genteel old phrase for broke.
1verbembarrassTo make someone feel awkward or self-conscious.
“He embarrassed her in front of the whole class.”
To embarrass was to block. French embarrasser meant to obstruct or to hamper, and it reached French from Spanish and Italian, so the sense of being stuck came well before the blush.
French
embarrasser
English, today
embarrass
Built from
Borrowed from French embarrasser. Borrowed from French embarrasser, from Middle French embarrasser, embarasser (“to embarrass; to block, obstruct”), from Spanish embarazar, either from Italian imbarazzare or from Portuguese embaraçar.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA