Character 忸

Bashful, ashamed, or embarrassed. 忸 combines 忄, the side form of 心 (“heart; mind”), and 丑 as its sound component. Classical citations include 五子之歌 (“Five Songs of the Sons”) in the Book of Documents, an early Chinese text, and Guoyu, a history text conventionally dated around the fourth century BCE.

What does 忸怩 mean? In Mandarin it describes bashful embarrassment; 忸怩作态 criticizes affected shyness, and 忸怩不安 describes uneasy self-consciousness. Japanese 忸怩 means deep shame about one's own actions. In the classical text Xunzi, 忸 also stands for 狃 (“become accustomed”), a separate older sense.