verb
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012Other Word Forms
- castigation noun
- castigative adjective
- castigator noun
- castigatory adjective
- noncastigating adjective
- self-castigating adjective
- uncastigated adjective
- uncastigative adjective
Etymology
Origin of castigate
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin castīgātus literally, “driven to be faultless” (past participle of castigāre “to chasten”), equivalent to cast(us) “pure, clean” + -īg-, combining form of agere “to drive, incite” + -ātus past participle suffix; chaste, -ate 1
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.
A French government minister castigated energy giant TotalEnergies on Friday for launching an oil exploration project in South America, saying companies needed to help the world exit from fossil fuels.
From Barron's
He then castigated “the venomous coalition attacking” the populist media figure for interviewing Mr. Fuentes and urged conservatives to focus “on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.”
It repeats, without shedding new light, on the ways Kissinger has long been celebrated and castigated.
From Salon
“I want to make a difference … They have to castigate, they have to impugn my motives. Because, if I’m right, what does that say about them?”
From Salon
Western governments — including some of Israel’s most loyal supporters — castigated the decision to invade, with Germany’s foreign minister slamming it as “the completely wrong path” and France saying the campaign had “no military logic.”
From Los Angeles Times
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.
