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
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stigmatizesimple
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stigmatizessimple
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have stigmatizedperfect
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has stigmatizedperfect
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am stigmatizingprogressive
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are stigmatizingprogressive
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is stigmatizingprogressive
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have been stigmatizingperfect progressive
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has been stigmatizingperfect progressive
Past
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stigmatizedsimple
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had stigmatizedperfect
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was stigmatizingprogressive
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were stigmatizingprogressive
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had been stigmatizingperfect progressive
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.
See Examples For:
Her claim, she said, “is about whether government can use official authority to stigmatize a private citizen without facts, without process, without fairness, accountability, investigation or even an interview — not even a phone call.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026
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 stigmatize the cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach themselves, as “dragon-ridden,” “thunder-stricken,” and fools of fate, with whatever powers endowed.
From The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Representative Prose and Verse by Various
The label stigmatizes Cambodia and its citizens, while these criminal networks are transnational and largely foreign-led.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
I vented to my husband about the irrationality of a society that stigmatizes something that helps rectify hearing loss.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2024
China has long had a conservative culture that stigmatizes homosexuality, though it was decriminalized in 1997.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2024
“A national law that further stigmatizes these children is completely unnecessary and hurts families and students at greater risk,” the statement said.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 17, 2023
Arnoldi! the historian is already seizing his pen, to submit your name to the contempt of your contemporaries and of posterity, and stigmatizes you as the Tetzel of the nineteenth century!
From John Ronge: The Holy Coat Of Treves New German-Catholic Chruch by Anonymous
Fur "was stigmatized for so long," Jacobs told AFP, posing before a full-length mirror and assessing a potential crop.
From Barron's ● Apr. 24, 2026
Some were less comfortable with the possibility of false positives, since there are often autistic people, or users whose first language isn’t English, whose writing styles are stigmatized as A.I.-like.
From Slate ● Apr. 1, 2026
“We were stigmatized, our benefits were taken away, and we were denied the opportunity to work in Venezuela,” said Polanco, the petroleum engineer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2026
This makes sense to me, that when estrangement is a pressing necessity it should not be stigmatized or judged.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
If all formal titles were to be stigmatized, he wrote to Benjamin Rush, then perhaps Rush’s children should start addressing their father as “Ben.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Even a clear definition of UPFs runs the risk of stigmatizing certain healthy foods.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 23, 2026
“These Americans have biological markers of Alzheimer’s disease risk starting in their brain and detectable in their blood. It doesn’t mean all 47 million Americans have a stigmatizing diagnosis like Alzheimer’s.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
"Anything that's just so black and white like that — unless, of course, it's true — you're stigmatizing the animal. You're stigmatizing the potential adopter. You're shaming the potential adopter," he told me.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2024
Clinicians “will go towards the less stigmatizing diagnosis, which is bipolar disorder,” he explained.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2024
As a Federalist, Burr felt that he should have Hamilton's support, but Hamilton used his great influence against him, stigmatizing him as "a dangerous man," and Jefferson was elected.
From American Men of Action by Stevenson, Burton Egbert
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.
