crying shame
6
4.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
una verdadera pena
- I've always said you were the perfect person to make that movie, and it's a crying shame that others didn't have the same faith.
- just a crying shame
It is a crying shame not to harness these studies.
- It is a crying shame not to harness these studies.
Examples
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It is a crying shame not to harness these studies.
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Considering how hard Piemur had worked with Farli, it was a crying shame that the little creature couldn't grasp the essential point.
Fiction book (1991) -
Everyone I know thinks that it is a crying shame I am not teaching.
Blog text (29) -
It's a crying shame the older kids couldn't make it.
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I can't say I liked the idea, but it would be a crying shame for all that energy to go to waste.
Fiction book (1990) -
Unfortunately, there hasn't been any new information on the project since, which is a crying shame.
Blog text (24) -
What Toby meant to say is that we don't get to see you guys often, and it's a crying shame.
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I mean, I just think it's a crying shame we're going to destroy... the prototype of future humanoid nanotechnology.
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Once you have mastery of your art, it would be a crying shame to spend all of your time and waste your creativity on production work.
Blog text (1) -
It's a crying shame that so much talent goes unnoticed each year.
Synonyms
442
1.3
A sad or disappointing situation you wish were different
A great pity or disappointment
Antonyms
How Regrettable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a situation that causes strong regret' is partly predictable: 'shame' conveys regret/pity and 'crying' here functions as an emphatic intensifier. However, 'crying' used this way is idiomatic (not just literal shedding of tears), so a B1 learner who knows only the literal senses may not reliably infer the exact idiomatic force without exposure.
Etymology
Crying shame comes from a simple picture of something so shameful that it would make people cry, with crying showing the strong feeling and shame the embarrassment. So, it now means 'a great pity' or 'very unfortunate'.