An indignity is something that makes you feel disrespected, embarrassed, or treated as less important than you deserve. When someone suffers an indignity, they experience treatment that attacks their dignity and self-respect.

Imagine you've worked incredibly hard on a project, and when you present it, someone yawns loudly and checks their phone the whole time. That's an indignity: you're being treated as if your effort doesn't matter. Or picture a talented athlete forced to sit on the bench while less skilled players get to play, simply because the coach doesn't like them. That unfair treatment is an indignity.

The word often appears when describing humiliating experiences. A person might suffer the indignity of having their belongings searched in front of everyone, or the indignity of having someone mispronounce their name repeatedly without caring enough to get it right.

Indignities aren't always dramatic. Sometimes they're small slights that accumulate: being interrupted constantly, having your ideas ignored, or being treated as invisible. What makes something an indignity is how it makes someone feel diminished or disrespected.