- disgrace
- disgrace n Disgrace, dishonor, disrepute, shame, infamy, ignominy, opprobrium, obloquy, odium mean the state, condition, character, or less often the cause of suffering disesteem and of enduring reproach or severe censure.Disgrace may imply no more than a loss of the favor or esteem one has enjoyed{
Queen Elizabeth's favorites were constantly in danger of disgrace if they offended her in the slightest degree
}{he was shut up in an attic . . . and forbidden to speak to his sisters, who were told that he was in disgrace— Russell
}The term, however, often implies complete humiliation and, sometimes, ostracism{you may find yourself at any moment summoned to serve on a jury and make decisions involving the disgrace or vindication ... of your fellow creatures— Shaw
}Dishonor may often be employed in place of disgrace, but typically it suggests a previous condition of being honored or of having a high sense of honor; it therefore may imply the loss of the honor that one has enjoyed or the loss of one's self-respect or self-esteem{prefer death to dishonor
}{but now mischance hath trod my title down, and with dishonor laid me on the ground— Shak.
}{wouldst thou . . . harp on the deep dishonor of our house— Byron
}Disrepute stresses either the loss of one's good name or the attribution of a bad name or reputation{the actions of certain of its guests have brought the hotel into disrepute
}{the disrepute into which this once famous name has now fallen
}{the habit of pub-crawling—so much the fashion when I was their age—seems to have happily fallen into disrepute— O'Connor
}Shame implies particularly humili-ating disgrace or disrepute such as is caused by an illicit union, illegitimate birth, inferior blood, relationship to a traitor or criminal, or commission of a crime{live in shame
}{a child of shame
}{"Is it not... a pity to live no better life?" "God knows it is a shame\"—Dickens
}{shame is a reaction to other people's criticism. A man .is shamed either by being openly ridiculed and rejected or by fantasying to himself that he has been made ridiculous— Benedict
}Infamy usually implies notoriety as well as exceeding shame{men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light— Sydney Smith
}{I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of crime, but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of infamy— Wilde
}Ignominy, more than infamy—which in some ways it closely resembles—stresses the almost unendurable con- temptibility or despicability of the disgrace or its cause{the ignominy he had been compelled to submit to— Meredith
}{was she now to endure the ignominy of his abandoning her?—D. H. Lawrence
}{the ignominy of returning to Spain, having accomplished nothing, became more obvious the more it was considered— Froude
}Opprobrium adds to disgrace the implication of being severely reproached or condemned{the opprobrium which often attaches itself to the term politician
}{Spain . . . has been plundered and oppressed, and the opprobrium lights on the robbers, not on the robbed— Buckle
}{the name "educator," for many intelligent people, has become a term of opprobrium— Grandgent
}{and undergo the perpetual obloquy of having lost a kingdom— Clarendon
}{that unmerited obloquy had been brought on him by the violence of his minister— Macaulay
}Odium applies to the disgrace or the opprobrium that is attached to the fact or state of being an object of widespread or universal hatred or intense dislike{whatever odium or loss her maneuvers incurred she flung upon her counselors— J. R. Green
}{as a preliminary Augustus . . . revised the senatorian roll. This was always an invidious task .... in the end he was compelled to make the nominations himself and face the odium— Buchan
}{many materialists . . . seek to eliminate the odium attaching to the word materialism, and even to eliminate the word itself— James
}Analogous words: degradation, debasement, abasement, humbling, humiliation (see corresponding verbs at ABASE): *stigma, brand, blot, stainAntonyms: respect, esteem
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
