羞

to be shy; feel ashamed

Kanji 2031

Find out how to say, "A bashful look came over her face," "These slums are a disgrace to our city," "I’m ashamed of my poor English," and "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Learn to overcome performance anxiety, especially by seeing the audience as vegetables! Find out how the name of a popular band arose from a misreading of 羞. And read about famously shy people.

Revision history:

Aug. 29, 2024: 

• pp. 2 and 6: Changed the definitions of 恥ずかしがる and 恥じる.
• p. 3: Revised the sample sentence about seeing people as vegetables.
• p. 3: In the last sample sentence, changed the Japanese comma to a period to fix a run-on sentence.
• p. 5: Replaced a link in the caption and improved the translation of the DVD title.
• p. 7: Changed 裏切 (うらぎり: betrayal) to 裏切る (うらぎる: to betray) in the vocab. under a sample sentence.
• p. 7: Deleted some renderings of はじらう and はじらい that aren't in my proofreader's sources and deleted the subsequent paragraph, as it's no longer relevant.
• p. 7: Defined 顔を背ける as one term in the vocab. under the last sample sentence.
• p. 8: Improved the translation of the Aphrodite of Cnidus sentence and noted that that caption has changed on Japanese Wikipedia.

Apr. 22, 2022: p. 4: Improved the translation of the first sample sentence.

Jan. 15, 2020:

• p. 2: Etymology Box: Added a Henshall etymology because there wasn't one before.
• p. 11: Added words to the translation of the last Japanese sentence, making it say, "Bashfulness was Osamu Dazai’s culture—that is, his way of life as a weak person."
• p. 13: Added a link to the Kanshudo games.

Jan. 23, 2015: Originally published.