Embarazada

Embarazada () is the Spanish word for pregnant. It is a false friend for native English-speaking students of Spanish who may attempt to say "I'm embarrassed" by saying "estoy embarazada". This phrase actually means "I'm pregnant" in Spanish. This may be confusing to Spanish speakers who are not familiar with the English word.
Spanish usage
The correct way to say "I'm embarrassed" in Spanish is with the phrase tengo vergüenza (meaning "I have shame") or the more formal phrases me da vergüenza or estoy avergonzado/a. Yet, in Spanish, there also exists the adjective embarazoso, meaning the same as "embarrassing" in its denotation of something that causes a sensation of unease, but not of shame. Complicating the issue further, embarazada can sometimes also mean "hampered", or "hindered". This more closely mirrors the original meaning of the English word embarrass.
Grammar
Embarazada is a past participle, meaning that it indicates a state resulting from a previous action. In English, past participles usually end in -ed (e.g., destroyed), and embarazado therefore translates directly into English as "impregnated". It is a conjugated form of embarazar "to impregnate". As the word embarazado is masculine, it is rarely encountered in Spanish. It is more common for the word embarazada to be used to describe pregnancy. However, embarazado can be used as a past participle in perfect tenses, as in: "El hombre ha embarazado a la mujer." (The man has impregnated the woman.)
Etymology
The English word embarrassed is indirectly derived from the Spanish word. The first recorded usage of embarrass in English was in 1664 by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The word was derived from the French word embarrasser, "to block" or "to obstruct", or figuratively, "to put one in a difficult situation".
The Spanish word likely comes from the Portuguese embaraçar (used in the same context of English embarrassment), which probably is a combination of the prefix em- (from Latin in- for "in-") with baraça "a noose", or "rope", which makes sense with the synonym encinta ("on noose, on rope" because of the old usage of women to wear a strap of cloth on their dresses when pregnant). Baraça originated before the Romans began their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 218 BCE. However, it certainly is not directly derived from it, as the substitution of r for rr in Iberian Romance languages was not a known occurrence.
Some say the Spanish word actually came from the Italian imbarazzare, from imbarazzo, "obstacle" or "obstruction". That word came from imbarrare, "to block" or "to bar", which is a combination of in-, "in", with barra, "bar" (from the Vulgar Latin barra, which is of unknown origin). Thus, modern scholars believe that the Italian word actually came from the Spanish one. and in Italian imbarazzare has the precise meaning of "to embarrass" in English.
Commercial implications
When Parker Pen entered the Mexican market, its advertisements, which claimed that Parker Pens "won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you", were mistranslated to "No te embarazará chorreándose en tu bolsillo", which means "Won't leak in your pocket and impregnate you".

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