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The Difference Between Abashed and Unabashed
To abash someone is to shake up their self-possession, as illustrated by Charlotte Brontë in her 1849 novel Shirley: "He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him." When you are unabashed you make no apologies for your behavior (nor do you attempt to hide or disguise it), but when you are abashed your confidence has been thrown off and you may feel rather inferior or ashamed of yourself. English speakers have been using abashed to describe feelings of embarrassment since the 14th century, but they have only used unabashed (brazenly or otherwise) since the 15th century (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Examples of unabashed in a Sentence
Seth Emerson, New York Times, 10 July 2025
Church is where his family's roots have fostered unabashed star power capable of raising thousands to their feet.
—Marcus K. Dowling, The Tennessean, 4 July 2025
His waltz through the twentieth century combined an unabashed taste for strongmen with a keen interest in history’s losers.
—Thomas Meaney, New Yorker, 2 July 2025
That word—entitled—is frequently thrown around to insult this generation, but there are some cases in which the unabashed expectation of fair treatment is a clear source of strength.
—Emma Sarappo, The Atlantic, 25 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for unabashed
Cite this Entry
“Unabashed.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unabashed. Accessed 2 Aug. 2025.
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