At the back awful tears, ending in humiliation (6)
I believe the answer is:
astern
'at the back' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'awful tears ending in humiliation' is the wordplay.
'awful' indicates anagramming the letters.
'ending in' says to take the final letters.
The last letter of 'humiliation' is 'n'.
'tears' anagrammed gives 'aster'.
'aster'+'n'='ASTERN'
(Other definitions for astern that I've seen before include "Behind (a boat)" , "Towards the rear of boat" , "Towards the rear of a ship" , "State of S central US" , "Towards back of boat" .)