overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cringeworthy.

That causes or may cause one to cringe with disgust, embarrassment (often vicarious embarrassment), etc.; awkward, disgusting, embarrassing.

12 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈkɹɪnd͡ʒˌwɜːði/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɹɪnd͡ʒˌwəːðɪj/British, Southern, Standard/ˈkɾɪnd͡ʒˌweːði//ˈkɹɪnd͡ʒˌweːði/
  1. That causes or may cause one to cringe with disgust, embarrassment (often vicarious embarrassment), etc.; awkward, disgusting, embarrassing.

    informal
Where this word comes from

From cringe (verb) + -worthy (suffix meaning of ‘sufficient worth for, deserving of’), popularized by the surname of the character Cuthbert Cringeworthy, an extremely studious pupil introduced in 1972 into The Bash Street Kids, a comic strip by the Scottish cartoonist David Sutherland (1933–2023) published in the British magazine The Beano.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

cringeworthy has 12 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

cringeworthy studiocringeworthy workshello, cringeworthy

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.