Chagrin over Chagrined

My husband asked me the other day if chagrined was the right word in the opening sentence of my previous blog post.

As the American Heritage Dictionary notes, chagrin can be a noun or verb.

n. A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event: To her chagrin, the party ended just as she arrived.

tr.v. chagrined, chagrining, chagrins To cause to feel chagrin; mortify or discomfit: He was chagrined at the poor sales of his book. See Synonyms at embarrass.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary offers these definitions:

As a noun:
1. obs. disturbance of mind resulting from care or anxiety: worry: depression of spirits: melancholy.
2. vexation, disquietude, or distress of mind brought on by failure or error

As a verb:
1. archaic to cause to feel anxiety: trouble: grieve
2. to vex through humiliation, hurt pride, or disappointment

As an adjective:
1. feeling or made to feel chagrin: disappointed: mortified

Well, I must express my chagrin that I didn't hew to the nuances of the term's meaning when I used chagrined in my previous posting to mean simply "vexed" or "disappointed." The term has a clear history and linkage to the concepts of shame and humiliation, and while I may feel embarrassed now as a word nerd who misused a term, I certainly had no cause to feel shame myself for the removal of the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary from the classrooms of a school district in California as I had no part in that.

You could argue that my use of chagrin was ok, given that the definitions allow for a broad sense of disappointment not necessarily always connected to humiliation, the same way people sometimes use shame colloquially to mean disappointment, as in "what a shame the rain ruined our picnic." However, as someone who is writing a vocabulary blog and pointing out the importance of the nuances of words' meanings, I have to 'fess up to this lapse. I plead guilty to allowing the allure of alliteration to supersede accurate usage. So, honey, you were right.