chasten
to inflict suffering upon for purposes of moral improvement; chastise.
to restrain; subdue: Age has chastened his violent temper.
to make chaste in style.
Origin of chasten
1Other words for chasten
Opposites for chasten
Other words from chasten
- chas·ten·er, noun
- chas·ten·ing·ly, adverb
- chas·ten·ment, noun
- un·chas·tened, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use chasten in a sentence
In this healthy chastening, in fact, lie the seeds of any political recovery Obama might make in time for 2012.
How chastening it is for America—and how disconcerting—to be cut down to size, yet again, by the Chinese.
Not a gooey emotional crescendo, but a rather chastening lesson on engaging with life.
Then, too, opposition tends to focus the marginalized mind, undistracted as it is by the chastening realities of power.
Perhaps, without these preliminary and chastening trials, I might have met death in an unworthy manner.
My Ten Years' Imprisonment | Silvio Pellico
Instead, he seems to be remembered with tolerance by even those whom he visited with a chastening pen.
The Letters of Ambrose Bierce | Ambrose BierceI should rejoice to see her passing through a discipline so chastening and exalting.
Ernest Linwood | Caroline Lee HentzHe had had no experience of the chastening rod, and could not conceive that anything of the sort was needed for Amanda.
Dry Fish and Wet | Anthon Bernhard Elias NilsenWhatever vices I have seem to be exaggerated by my malaise—such "chastening" not answering the purpose of purification in my case.
George Eliot's Life, Vol. II (of 3) | George Eliot
British Dictionary definitions for chasten
/ (ˈtʃeɪsən) /
to bring to a state of submission; subdue; tame
to discipline or correct by punishment
to moderate; restrain; temper
Origin of chasten
1Derived forms of chasten
- chastener, noun
- chasteningly, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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