Make (someone) feel embarrassed, disconcerted, or ashamed.
'I was too abashed, too embarrassed that I had actually asked something like that!'
'He saw that she was not abashed and glared even more.'
'They all filed in and sat down in the chairs, looking slightly abashed that they had been caught.'
'To her credit, the blond looked slightly abashed.'
'The punky couple gave me a disdainful look, and I could only slink out abashed.'
'Instead, he fled the country until, abashed by a public outcry and newspaper appeals to find him, he contacted his family and his father fetched him home.'
'Alright, so most teenagers wouldn't admit to having such a geeky passion, but I wasn't abashed in the least.'
'He didn't seem the least abashed that water was running down his chin and onto his clothes and that the people who were passing by were giving him weird looks.'
'‘Funnily enough, yes, I am,’ he answered, not at all abashed by my question.'
'But she grinned and looked abashed, and muttered something about her grandchildren.'
((p. pr. & vb. n.) of Abash)
Origin:
Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French abaiss-; compare with Old French esbaiss-, lengthened stem of esbair, from es- ‘utterly’ + bair ‘astound’.
