These words express various shades of meaning implicit in the general idea of feeling or of making others feel uncomfortable in situations or under circumstances that involve a loss of self-esteem. Shame , the strongest of them, implies a painful sense of guilt or of degradation arising from a consciousness of acting in an unworthy or dishnourable way.

• They shamed him by their courage in the emergency; He was shamed by his failure to pass the final test.

Mortify is somewhat milder, suggesting humiliation or chagrin resulting from an unpleasant experience: The teacher was mortified by her pupil’s poor showing. (Note that in this sense it can sometimes be replaced by ashamed of: mortified by or ashamed of one’s behaviour.) It may also signify punishment or decay: to mortify the flesh by fasting; the mortification of gangrenous tissue.

Embarrass means to make self-conscious or uncomfortable: a young lady embarrassed by her escort’s drunken behaviour at a party. It may also denote the checking or hindering of thought, speech or a course of action: an embarrassing setback to his plans; to embarrass an opponent by awkward questions. Abash is to confuse or disconcert, as by arousing a sudden consciousness of inferiority.

• The child was abashed by his mother’s reproof; No amount of scorn or ridicule could abash him.

Discomfit still carries its former military sense of defeating or routing an enemy: It was a great satisfaction to have discomfited his rival. More loosely, it can be used, instead of embarrass or abash , to suggest dejection short of actual humiliation or defeat: discomfited because he forgot the address. Discomfit is often confused with "discomfort," which means to make uneasy or uncomfortable. This may have little relationship with shame, but unfortunately the words are homophones. Faze is a colloquial American expression meaning to worry, vex or disturb and is generally used only in the negative sense: He was not fazed by the attacks made on his character. Rattle , another colloquial expression, implies a state of emotional confusion or agitation: The speaker was rattled by constant interruptions from the audience.