How to Use shameful in a Sentence

shameful

adjective
  • There is no excuse for such shameful behavior.
  • But as a vestige of that shameful era, the noose lives on.
    Alaa Elassar, CNN, 23 June 2020
  • And not getting to the end shouldn’t be shameful, Egan said.
    Emma Sarappo, The Atlantic, 13 Sep. 2022
  • The calves of a woman’s legs were shameful things and not to be exposed.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Dec. 2021
  • It’s not just part of a shameful past, but a living part of our present.
    Sarah Paiji Yoo, Marie Claire, 4 Aug. 2021
  • Even so, a shameful whiff of idleness clings to the writer.
    Nathan Wolff, Washington Post, 13 June 2023
  • No one has made trickin’ sound so cool, yet sound so shameful.
    Christopher Claxton, Billboard, 1 Oct. 2024
  • Humphrey sometimes shook his head at the shameful litany.
    Jamie Thompson, New York Times, 28 Feb. 2023
  • To give life sentences to two 19-year-old boys is shameful.
    NBC News, 5 May 2021
  • The lack of support for new parents in the United States is shameful.
    SELF, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Your pastor’s comments alone are – shameful, to say the least.
    Amy Dickinson, Detroit Free Press, 4 Oct. 2020
  • Your pastor’s comments alone are — shameful, to say the least.
    Amy Dickinson, oregonlive, 4 Oct. 2020
  • The shortage of women on the country charts is shameful.
    Dan Deluca, Philly.com, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Allowing me to spend the last five months sitting with a ton of stress was shameful.
    Graham Kates, CBS News, 17 Dec. 2019
  • There was a period of time where this was very shameful.
    Caitlin Harrington, Wired, 30 July 2020
  • But now death had become a shameful thing, to be banished from sight.
    Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker, 14 Aug. 2023
  • For too long it’s felt like something shameful to talk about, but that is changing.
    Shannon Carlin, refinery29.com, 24 June 2020
  • That the 60-year-old Hale is only now getting a chance to manage is shameful.
    BostonGlobe.com, 28 Aug. 2021
  • There is nothing wrong or shameful about a boy who wants to do ballet.
    Leah Rocketto, Woman's Day, 23 Aug. 2019
  • His death and the government’s handling of it are shameful.
    Bill Goodykoontz, azcentral, 2 Feb. 2020
  • The refusal to add the IRGC to the terror blacklist is shameful but not surprising.
    Benjamin Weinthal, Fox News, 24 Jan. 2023
  • The shameful chapter cast a long shadow over Corbin, which city leaders have tried to shake for decades.
    courier-journal.com, 15 Sep. 2020
  • The board tabled the item without discussion, which Marois called shameful.
    Jesse Leavenworth, courant.com, 12 Aug. 2020
  • Lo and behold, this year’s prizes ended a shameful streak: Batiste is the first Black Album of the Year winner since 2008.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Democrats started yelling out that this was shameful and a harassment of the witness.
    Jeet Heer, The New Republic, 12 July 2018
  • All of them, save Fani, see this as a shameful night job — more a chance to improve their circumstances than to avenge them.
    David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 3 July 2024
  • Letting a goal go by the wayside can feel shameful or like giving up.
    Alexa Mikhail, Fortune, 29 Sep. 2022
  • The seven-minute film asks what kind of place society should allot to the most painful or shameful parts of its past.
    Güzin Kar, The New Yorker, 8 Dec. 2021
  • The rest of America can use the day off to work on its own freedom—from a shameful past and a violent present.
    Kellie Carter Jackson, The Atlantic, 19 June 2020
  • If the narrative of the 20th century is one of male greatness and genius, a pantheon of figures such as Nietzsche and Freud, Tokarczuk insists that this history obscures a world of shameful sexism.
    Bekah Waalkes, The Atlantic, 3 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shameful.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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