Other forms: humiliations
Humiliation is the hot, sick feeling of being made to look small in front of other people. Being named and told off in a full meeting; a speech that dies; the walk back to your seat after missing the penalty.
It is far stronger than embarrassment. Embarrassment is a red face for a minute; humiliation is damage to your standing, and it stays with you. The word takes of and for — the humiliation of asking for money, humiliation for the whole family. It also names the event itself and not only the feeling, so a heavy defeat is a humiliation: a six-nil humiliation at home. The verb is humiliate, the adjective is humiliating, and you can be humiliated by another person or by your own mistake. Public humiliation is the fixed phrase, and it is the version people fear most.
1nounhumiliationThe feeling of shame that comes from being made to look foolish or weak in front of others.
“He still remembers the humiliation of being sent out of the classroom.”
2nouneventAn event or a defeat that makes someone look foolish or weak.
“The election result was a humiliation for the party.”
humiliation is a painful kind of shame.
Humiliation arrived through Middle French humiliation from Latin humiliātiō, formed on humiliō, to humiliate. English took both halves and kept them apart: the verb humiliate for the act, and the -ion ending for the state it leaves behind. The pair works exactly like separate and separation — one is what somebody does, the other is what is left afterwards.
Latin
humiliātiō
Middle French
humiliation
English, today
humiliation
Built from
From Middle French humiliation, from Latin humiliātiō, from humiliō (“to humiliate”); see humiliate. Equivalent to humiliate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA