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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shamefacedness

Shamefaced \Shame"faced`\, a. [For shamefast; AS. scamf[ae]st. See Shame, n., and Fast firm.] Easily confused or put out of countenance; diffident; bashful; modest.

Your shamefaced virtue shunned the people's prise.
--Dryden.

Note: Shamefaced was once shamefast, shamefacedness was shamefastness, like steadfast and steadfastness; but the ordinary manifestations of shame being by the face, have brought it to its present orthography.
--Trench. [1913 Webster] -- Shame"faced, adv. -- Shame"faced`ness, n.

WordNet
shamefacedness

n. feeling embarrassed about yourself [syn: sheepishness]

Usage examples of "shamefacedness".

I could not refuse to pay the penalty of my own deeds, and I have never been able to ascertain whether the shame I felt was what is called shamefacedness.

But who doubts that the modern prohibition of the marriage even of cousins is the more seemly regulation-not merely on account of the reason we have been urging, the multiplying of relationships, so that one person might not absorb two, which might be distributed to two persons, and so increase the number of people bound together as a family, but also because there is in human nature I know not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which restrains us from desiring that connection which, though for propagation, is yet lustful and which even conjugal modesty blushes over, with any one to whom consanguinity bids us render respect?