stigmatize
Americanverb
-
to mark out or describe (as something bad)
-
to mark with a stigma or stigmata
Other Word Forms
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
The behaviors that Gerdes' bill seeks to stigmatize are — as any person who has ever met a child or been a child could tell you — entirely normal forms of play.
From Salon • May 12, 2025
Virologists have also come to acknowledge that names can stigmatize people or places.
From Science Magazine • Apr. 3, 2024
“Our Board of Supervisors knows that these conditions beneath human dignity stigmatize and traumatize people and make all of us less safe.”
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 12, 2023
Formerly, when the Jesuits had powerful protectors, the practice was to turn them into ridicule; now, that they have powerful enemies, the object is to stigmatize them with every vice.
From The New Conspiracy Against the Jesuits Detected and Briefly Exposed with a short account of their institute; and observations on the danger of systems of education independent of religion by Dallas, R. C. (Robert Charles)
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.
