What's the difference between astonishment and embarrassment?

Astonishment


Definition:

  • (n.) The condition of one who is stunned. Hence: Numbness; loss of sensation; stupor; loss of sense.
  • (n.) Dismay; consternation.
  • (n.) The overpowering emotion excited when something unaccountable, wonderful, or dreadful is presented to the mind; an intense degree of surprise; amazement.
  • (n.) The object causing such an emotion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is my desperate hope that we close out of town.” In the book, God publishes his own 'It Getteth Better' video and clarifies his original writings on homosexuality: I remember dictating these lines to Moses; and afterward looking up to find him staring at me in wide-eyed astonishment, and saying, "Thou do knowest that when the Israelites read this, they're going to lose their fucking shit, right?"
  • (2) To a supporter at the last election like me – someone who spoke alongside Nick Clegg at the curtain-raiser event for the party conference during the height of Labour's onslaught on civil liberties, and was assured privately by two leaders that the party was onside about civil liberties – this breach of trust and denial of principle is astonishing.
  • (3) It's that he habitually abuses his position by lobbying ministers at all; I've heard from former ministers who were astonished by the speed with which their first missive from Charles arrived, opening with the phrase: "It really is appalling".
  • (4) Puskas, possessed of a left foot of astonishing power, and his team colleagues, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor, all found their way to Spain.
  • (5) Results of venous thrombectomies are particularly astonishingly good in phlegmasia coerulea and it is therefore mandatory to transfer all fresh cases of thrombosis of the deep veins of the peelvis and lower extremities to an angiologic center in order to differentiate cases for fibrinolytic therapy, from those which require surgical intervention.
  • (6) FWA chairman Andy Dunn said: "Those members who have been fortunate enough to be working at a match involving Luis Suárez have witnessed an astonishing talent first-hand.
  • (7) Even Corbyn’s fiercest critics have to concede he has achieved something astonishing.
  • (8) Recently released figures from the Veterans Administration on the number of Vietnam veterans who have been granted service connection in their claims for post-traumatic stress disorder appear to be astonishingly low, given the publicity that the media and mental health professionals have placed on this diagnosis in recent years.
  • (9) It is, in fact, quite astonishing to find British housebuilders and planners going along with the design and construction of such decent new homes.
  • (10) Over the past year, they’ve been to five continents and discovered an astonishing world of insect flavour.
  • (11) "The memorable 1961 British Home Championship yielded an astonishing 40 goals from six matches," writes Erik Kennedy.
  • (12) The complication rate was astonishingly low during IUSC: being only 4.3% (2 male patients, one with stricture of the urethra and epididymitis, one with autonomous dysreflexia with bladder overdistension).
  • (13) He added: “In the context of very surprising populist electoral successes in the US it would be astonishing if the BBC didn’t interview her.
  • (14) So how did Vanity Fair decide to illustrate this heartfelt and rather astonishing interview?
  • (15) Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said he would be astonished if the coalition had not enacted a lobbyists' register and a power to recall errant MPs by 2015.
  • (16) At one point, Hodge said she was astonished that the secretary of state had claimed that Stephens had approved Smith's role.
  • (17) Individualism – the assertion of every person’s claim to maximised private freedom and the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires … became the leftwing watchword of the hour.” The result was an astonishing liberation: from millennia of social, gender and sexual control by powerful, mostly elderly men.
  • (18) She is fantastically clever and when she's on about ideas she is astonishing.
  • (19) The kinetic data obtained using lysine-containing model peptides as substrates indicate an astonishing similarity to mammalian lysyloxidase.
  • (20) "We are a struggling small business and I am astonished that banks are allowed to get away with handling their accounts in this way.

Embarrassment


Definition:

  • (n.) A state of being embarrassed; perplexity; impediment to freedom of action; entanglement; hindrance; confusion or discomposure of mind, as from not knowing what to do or to say; disconcertedness.
  • (n.) Difficulty or perplexity arising from the want of money to pay debts.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
  • (2) This has been infrequently reported to occur during general anesthesia and to cause respiratory embarrassment, representing a significant hazard.
  • (3) Already the demand for such a liturgy is growing among clergy, who are embarrassed by having to withhold the church's official support from so many of their own flock who are in civil partnerships.
  • (4) Updated at 1.57am GMT 1.55am GMT Andrew Quinn (@AndrewEQuinn) @ busfield @ lengeldavid @ gdnussports Why's it embarrassing?
  • (5) In the wake of the horrors of the second world war it was the proudest gift to a land fit for heroes, delivered at a time when the national debt made our current crisis look like an embarrassing bar tab.
  • (6) MPs have voted to abandon the controversial badger cull in England entirely, inflicting an embarrassing defeat on ministers who had already been forced to postpone the start of the killing until next summer.
  • (7) "I'm not at all embarrassed about being gay, it's just that I don't particularly want the first or only thing that people associate me with to be that I'm gay."
  • (8) Many have degrees or work in professional fields, and feel embarrassed by the fact they have become a victim of fraud.
  • (9) Earlier this fall the skier Bode Miller was one of the few American athletes to speak out against the Russian law, calling it "absolutely embarrassing".
  • (10) Plenty of people felt embarrassed, upset, outraged or betrayed by the Goncourts' record of things they had said or had said about them.
  • (11) He will insist "government should stop feeling embarrassed about the need for more patriotism in our economic policy.
  • (12) Asked whether the loss of control of the streets was embarrassing, Sir Paul replied: "Well the one thing I would say is that it must have been an awful time for the people trying to go about their daily business in those buildings.
  • (13) During interviews, married couples experiencing infertility reported emotional reactions such as sadness, depression, anger, confusion, desperation, hurt, embarrassment, and humiliation.
  • (14) Satisfaction with agency performance remained at a high level and feelings of embarrassment generally declined.
  • (15) Fail, and the nation’s rulers face embarrassment in front of a television audience of more than a billion.
  • (16) Plibersek’s spokesman said on Friday: “Who is Mr Brandis to dictate the language on the Middle East peace negotiations?” The spokesman said the intervention this week amounted to “another foreign policy embarrassment for the Abbott government, which is why [Brandis] was forced by the foreign minister and the Foreign Affairs Department to rush out a statement about his inept pronouncements.” Labor ran into its own controversy earlier this year when Bill Shorten appeared to telegraph a shift in policy around the description of settlements in a major speech to the Zionist Federation of Australia.
  • (17) He looks embarrassed – whether it's at the albums themselves or his intolerance of them, I'm not sure.
  • (18) Perhaps Silver and company would have been a bit more methodical if this embarrassing story had sprung up during the offseason or in early fall, when casual fans are wrapped up in football.
  • (19) Britain's most senior police officer was tonight forced to admit he was "embarrassed" that his officers had lost control of the capital's streets in scenes reminiscent of last year's G20 demonstration.
  • (20) Thomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey, the two Swedes behind the stunt, said they wanted to show support for Belarussian human rights activists and to embarrass the country's military, a pillar of Lukashenko's power.