Chastise
verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To punish, especially by corporal punishment. transitive
"And now whereas my father did lade you with a heauy yoke, I wil adde to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whippes, but I will chastise you with scorpions."
- 2 censure severely wordnet
- 3 To castigate; to scold or censure. transitive
"She feels definitely that Lung Shing is her town, and is not hesitant to chastise people who she thinks are not behaving properly—such as, for example, a woman using loud, vulgar language on the street—although in so doing she may only turn the direction of abuse on herself."
Example
More examples"Among some who have read Blackstone and more who have not an opinion prevails that a husband may chastise his wife provided the weapon be not thicker than his little finger."
Etymology
From Middle English chastisen, from Old French chastier, from Latin castīgō. See also the doublets chasten and castigate and cf. also chaste.
More for "chastise"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.