Humiliate

Podcast 1 · Introduction

Humiliate

A documentary-style narration: origin, meaning, and feel.

Part of speech

verb

Pronunciation

hyoo-MIL-ee-ayt  /hjuːˈmɪlɪeɪt/

Definition

To make someone feel ashamed and foolish by injuring their dignity and self-respect; to cause a humiliating experience to; to lower someone's dignity or self-esteem, typically in public.

Plain meaning

To humiliate means to make someone feel deeply ashamed and embarrassed — usually by exposing their weakness, failure, or inadequacy in front of others. Public humiliation is a particularly powerful experience because shame is social. The noun is humiliation.

Register

Neutral to negative. Humiliate is always pejorative in describing an act — it is never desirable to be humiliated. The noun humiliation is used in psychology, international relations, and everyday contexts to describe the experience of profound shame and loss of dignity.