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
-
stigmatizesimple
-
stigmatizessimple
-
have stigmatizedperfect
-
has stigmatizedperfect
-
am stigmatizingprogressive
-
are stigmatizingprogressive
-
is stigmatizingprogressive
-
have been stigmatizingperfect progressive
-
has been stigmatizingperfect progressive
Past
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
30 GRE Words Beginning with "Q" "R" and "S"
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
"The Moustache" and "Who We Really Are"
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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
“When you say you are a Vodouist, they stigmatize you,” said Kadel Bazile, a 42-year-old civil engineer.
From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2024
No words of reprobation can be too severe to stigmatize a man capable of being so heartless.”
From The Squatter and the Don by C. Loyal
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
“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
“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
His whole career, as long as I had known him, had been dotted with little eccentricities of a type which an unfeeling world generally stigmatizes as shady.
From Love Among the Chickens A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm by Armand Both
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
Since Gilberg opened his practice in 1965, psychiatry and psychotherapy have gone from highly stigmatized secrets to something people acknowledge in award show acceptance speeches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 13, 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
Psychologists have long observed that when people feel hopelessly stigmatized, a powerful coping strategy—often the only apparent route to self-esteem—is embracing one’s stigmatized identity.
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
As Valda says, the Supreme Court has suggested that allowing prayer in school then forcing certain children to opt out would be stigmatizing for those children.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2025
“We want to look at this as helping people get rid of head lice, versus stigmatizing and saying, ‘You have to go home, you can't come back to school,’” King said.
From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2024
Failing to persuade him to retire Lucullus turned to abuse, stigmatizing him as officious, a lover of war, a lover of office, and so on.
From Dio's Rome, Volume 2 An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus; and Now Presented in English Form. Second Volume Extant Books 36-44 (B.C. 69-44). by Herbert Baldwin Foster
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.
