What does shameful mean?
Word: Shameful
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Shameful means so bad or wrong that it should make someone feel ashamed.
Synonyms: disgraceful, dishonourable, scandalous
Antonyms: admirable, praiseworthy
How do you spell shameful?
Syllables: shame - ful
Tricky part: The suffix -ful has only one l, though it comes from full. Also keep the e of shame: shamful is wrong.
Watch out for: shamefull, shamful, shamefool
Memory tip: Full of shame shrinks to shameful: when full becomes a suffix it loses an l, and shame keeps its e.
Shameful in a sentence
Example 1: Throwing plastic into the holy river is a shameful habit.
Example 2: The team's shameful behaviour after losing the match was shown on the evening news.
Example 3: It is shameful that some children in the city still cannot go to school.
Fun Fact
Shameful has an older cousin, shamefaced, which began as shamefast, meaning held fast by modesty; people later changed fast to faced, perhaps because shame shows on the face.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Makeup
Only one of these root words does NOT take the suffix -ful to form an adjective. Choose it:
ful
a) grace
b) use
c) shame
d) honest
Show answer
d) honest. Shame, grace and use become shameful, graceful and useful; honest needs no suffix to be an adjective.
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word shameful as used in the sentence:
Leaving litter all over the picnic spot was a shameful act that let the whole class down.
a) unworthy
b) deplorable
c) honourable
d) careless
Show answer
c) honourable. An honourable act earns respect; deplorable and unworthy are close to shameful, and careless is a fault too.
Spell-o-Spell
Read the four words. Choose the meaning of the only correctly spelt word:
1. shameful 2. remorsful 3. humiliateing 4. embarassed
a) awkward and uneasy in front of others
b) bad enough to bring disgrace
c) making someone feel foolish in public
d) feeling sorry for a wrong you did
Show answer
b) bad enough to bring disgrace. Remorseful keeps the e of remorse, embarrassed needs a double r and humiliating drops the e, so shameful is the correct spelling.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
Our coach said that walking off without shaking hands was fsaumelh.
a) hopeful
b) shameful
c) harmful
d) fearful
Show answer
b) shameful. Harmful and fearful both need an r, and hopeful needs an o and a p; shameful uses every letter.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Most people would call ____ shameful.
a) winning the inter-school race
b) helping an old neighbour home
c) breaking a promise to a friend
d) returning a lost purse to its owner
Show answer
c) breaking a promise to a friend
2. If a referee calls a foul shameful, he thinks it was ____.
a) minor and harmless
b) lucky and unplanned
c) unsporting and wrong
d) clever and skilful
Show answer
c) unsporting and wrong
