Embarrass vs Demean - What's the difference?
embarrass | demean |
to humiliate; to disrupt somebody's composure or comfort with acting publicly or freely; to disconcert; to abash
To hinder from liberty of movement; to impede; to obstruct.
To involve in difficulties concerning money matters; to encumber with debt; to beset with urgent claims or demands.
To debase; to lower; to degrade.
* Thackeray
To humble, humble oneself; to humiliate.
To mortify.
To manage; to conduct; to treat.
* Milton
To conduct; to behave; to comport; followed by the reflexive pronoun.
* Shakespeare
* Clarendon
(archaic) Management; treatment.
* Spenser
(archaic) Behavior; conduct; bearing; demeanor.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , V.5:
*:‘When thou hast all this doen, then bring me newes / Of his demeane […].’
* West
As verbs the difference between embarrass and demean
is that embarrass is to humiliate; to disrupt somebody's composure or comfort with acting publicly or freely; to disconcert; to abash while demean is to debase; to lower; to degrade.As a noun demean is
management; treatment.embarrass
English
Verb
(es)- The crowd's laughter and jeers embarrassed him.
- Business is embarrassed'''; public affairs are '''embarrassed .
- A man or his business is embarrassed when he can not meet his pecuniary engagements.
Synonyms
* (humiliate) abash, discomfit, disconcert, humiliate, shame * See alsoDerived terms
* embarrassmentExternal links
* *demean
English
Etymology 1
(1595) From . Compare English (m).Verb
(en verb)- Her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter.
Synonyms
* debase * lower * degradeEtymology 2
From (etyl) .Verb
(en verb)- [Our] clergy have with violence demeaned the matter.
- They have demeaned themselves / Like men born to renown by life or death.
- They answered that they should demean themselves according to their instructions.
Noun
- vile demean and usage bad
- with grave demean and solemn vanity
