abash
pronunciation
How to pronounce abash in British English:
UK [ə'bæʃ]
How to pronounce abash in American English:
US [əˈbæʃ]
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- Verb:
- cause to be embarrassed; cause to feel self-conscious
Word Origin
- abash
- abash: [14] Abash shares a common ancestry with abeyance [16], although the latter underwent an about-turn in meaning in the 17th century which disguises their relationship. They go back to a Latin verb batāre, meaning ‘yawn’ or ‘gape’. This was borrowed into French as baer, later bayer (it was the source of English bay ‘recessed space’).The addition of the prefix es- (from Latin ex-) produced esbaer, later e(s)bahir ‘gape with astonishment’, whence, via the present stem e(s)bass-, came English abash, which originally meant ‘stand amazed’ as well as ‘embarrass, discomfit’. (Bashful is a 16thcentury derivative, with elision of the a-, which was first used by the dramatist Nicholas Udall.) Addition of the prefix a- to Old French baer, meanwhile, had given abaer ‘aspire after’, and its noun abeance ‘aspiration, desire’.In legal terminology, this word was used in French for the condition of a person in expectation or hope of receiving property, but in English the focus quickly became reversed to the property, and its condition of being temporarily without an owner.=> abeyance, bashful
- abash (v.)
- "perplex, embarrass," early 15c., earlier "lose one's composure, be upset" (late 14c.), from Old French esbaiss-, present stem of esbaer "gape with astonishment," from es "out" (see ex-) + ba(y)er "to be open, gape," from Latin *batare "to yawn, gape," from root *bat, possibly imitative of yawning. Related: Abashed; abashing. Bashful is a 16c. derivative.
Antonym
Example
- 1. Nothing could abash him .
- 2. Embarrass nothing can abash him .
- 3. That could abash the little bird .
- 4. If I had not known before that you were trying somehow to abash me I should know it now .
- 5. When the child see all the room is filled with strangers , he is much abash .