stigmatize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
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to mark out or describe (as something bad)
-
to mark with a stigma or stigmata
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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have stigmatizedperfect
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has stigmatizedperfect 3rd person singular
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are stigmatizingprogressive
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have been stigmatizingperfect progressive
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has been stigmatizingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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am stigmatizingprogressive 1st person singular
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stigmatizessingular 3rd person
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is stigmatizingprogressive 3rd person singular
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stigmatizingparticiple
Past
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had stigmatizedperfect
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were stigmatizingprogressive plural
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had been stigmatizingperfect progressive
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stigmatizedsimple
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was stigmatizingprogressive singular
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stigmatizedparticiple
Future
Etymology
Origin of stigmatize
1575–85; < Medieval Latin stigmatizāre, equivalent to stigmat- ( see stigmatic) + -izāre -ize
Explanation
If you stigmatize someone, you have given that person a label — and it's usually a label that is limiting in some way. In Ancient Greece, a stigma was a brand burned into a slave or a criminal's skin to symbolize disgrace. In the 1500s, the word stigmatize meant literally "to brand or tattoo." Nowadays, to stigmatize is to shame or brand a person in a more symbolic way.
Vocabulary lists containing stigmatize
The Federalist Papers, No. 1 by Alexander Hamilton
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30 GRE Words Beginning with "Q" "R" and "S"
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"The Moustache" and "Who We Really Are"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Critics of involuntary civil-commitment programs argue they violate civil liberties and stigmatize mental illness.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026
“I can accept myself and the world can still stigmatize me,” McMillan Cottom said.
From Salon • May 10, 2024
Virologists have also come to acknowledge that names can stigmatize people or places.
From Science Magazine • Apr. 3, 2024
We cannot stigmatize or discourage individuals who are seeking care in the emergency department, the only place that is always open and will never turn them away.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 6, 2024
Yet stigmatize not our poet as a dark master, courting the shade, and hating the glad lights which love and hope cast upon human nature.
From Life Without and Life Within or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and poems. by Fuller, Margaret
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
