stigmatize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
stigmatizes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
stigmatized,
past participle, past
-
stigmatizing
present participle
verb
-
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
-
stigmatizessimple
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have stigmatizedperfect
-
has stigmatizedperfect
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am stigmatizingprogressive
-
are stigmatizingprogressive
-
is stigmatizingprogressive
-
have been stigmatizingperfect progressive
-
has been stigmatizingperfect progressive
Past
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stigmatizedsimple
-
had stigmatizedperfect
-
was stigmatizingprogressive
-
were stigmatizingprogressive
-
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:
Critics of involuntary civil-commitment programs argue they violate civil liberties and stigmatize mental illness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
Many feared the decision could further stigmatize the shot in a moment when many parents are refusing it simply because the recommendation is under review.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
“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
One principle, covetousness of the attainment of power, has nevertheless constantly predominated, and has derided and endeavoured to stigmatize as weakness and imbecility, the stopping short of great acquisitions, territorial especially, for moral considerations.
From History of the Buccaneers of America by James Burney
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
China has long had a conservative culture that stigmatizes homosexuality, though it was decriminalized in 1997.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 30, 2024
Young people suffer in silence in a society that still stigmatizes mental health and sharing feelings.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 28, 2024
“Our culture stigmatizes mental illness, and this is being deliberately leveraged in a disease where there is not very good evidence of a mental health connection,” she says.
From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2023
One deals with statements made by Babylonian ambassadors, whom the Pharaoh stigmatizes as liars.
From Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald Alexander Mackenzie
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
Nicole Coates, 39, of Meridian, Idaho, feels God asked her to speak up about her estrangement from her eldest child, who is 22, to help other estranged mothers and fathers feel less stigmatized.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2025
Many who took part in the study, however, said they avoided seeking care either because they couldn’t afford it or because they worried they’d be stigmatized for having a mental health crisis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2025
Rather than shaming and condemning an already deeply stigmatized group, we, collectively, can embrace them—not necessarily their behavior, but them—their humanness.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
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
Clinicians “will go towards the less stigmatizing diagnosis, which is bipolar disorder,” he explained.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2024
“It’s a way of stigmatizing these groups — a very familiar pattern from the Soviet past,” said political analyst Kornely Kakachia, who directs a think tank in Tbilisi.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2024
All parties and classes united in stigmatizing the behavior of the Allies in terms which even the literary eminence of the poet d'Annunzio could not induce the censors to let pass.
From The Inside Story of the Peace Conference by Emile Joseph Dillon
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.
