- shameless
- shameless, brazen, barefaced, brash, impudent can apply to persons and their acts that defy the moral code or social decorum when they mean characterized by boldness and a lack of a sense of shame.Shameless implies a lack of effective restraints (as modesty, a sense of decency, an active conscience, or concern for the respect of others){
a shameless neglect of her children
}{shameless gossips
}{shameless graft
}{regards every compromise his comrades have made to get the machine going as a shameless betrayal of principle— West
}{no composer . . . makes such shameless use of patriotic feelings to advertise his product— Virgil Thomson
}Brazen implies not only complete shamelessness but defiant insolence{at first a furtive, now a brazen, thief
}{a brazen minister of state, who bore for twice ten years the public hate— Swift
}{solicited praise and power with the brazen, businesslike air of a streetwalker on the prowl— Rovere
}Barefaced implies absence of all effort to disguise or to mask one's transgressions; it connotes extreme effrontery{a barefaced lie
}{barefaced tyranny
}{however barefaced their deceptions, they manage to convince themselves at the time that they are speaking the truth— Muggeridge
}Brash so strongly implies impetuousness that it does not stress shamelessness as clearly as the preceding words; however, it is often used in place of shameless when heedlessness and temerity make one indifferent to the claims of conscience or one's sense of decency{a brash intrusion on another's privacy
}{brash reporters
}{deeply I repented of brash and boyish crime— Lindsay
}{felt secure enough in his wealth to make several brash, futile attempts at joining the country club— Styron
}Impudent adds to shameless implications of bold or pert defiance of considerations of modesty or decency{conduct so sordidly unladylike that even the most impudent woman would not dare do it openly— Shaw
}{women are getting impudent all over again and corsetieres, dreaming of the old, elegant, secure, confining days, may well despair— Lois Long
}{she has a passion for impudent adventure, and . . . has quite properly explored a number of improper relationships— Payne
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
