Meaning & use
ostracize
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To deliberately leave someone out of a group by ignoring them or refusing to speak to or include them.
Grammar: Takes an object, often a person: ostracize a classmate.
Patterns
- ostracize someone
- be ostracized by someone
The other students ostracized him after the incident.
She felt ostracized by her neighbors.
Some families ostracize relatives who break with tradition.
verbtransitivespecialist
In ancient Athens, to send a citizen into temporary exile by public vote.
Grammar: Historical sense; this is where the word comes from.
Patterns
- ostracize someone
Athenians could ostracize a leader seen as too powerful.
Historians describe how citizens would ostracize a politician by writing his name on a piece of pottery.
Word forms
| third person singular | ostracizes |
|---|---|
| past tense | ostracized |
| past participle | ostracized |
| -ing form | ostracizing |
Common combinations
- feel ostracized
- New workers sometimes feel ostracized.
- be ostracized by the community
- He was ostracized by the community after the scandal.
- socially ostracized
- She was socially ostracized for speaking out.
- ostracize a member
- The club chose to ostracize a member who broke the rules.
- risk being ostracized
- Whistleblowers risk being ostracized.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shun
- Shun means to avoid someone on purpose and can be done by one person, while ostracize usually involves a group.
- exclude
- Exclude is neutral and can describe rules, but ostracize always means social rejection.
- blackball
- Blackball means to vote someone out of a club, which is narrower than ostracize.
- banish
- Banish means to send away by force, while ostracize may leave the person present but ignored.
Opposites
Word family
- ostracism noun
- the act or state of being shut out by a group
- ostracized adjective
- deliberately left out of a group
- ostracizing noun
- the act of shutting someone out, as in the ostracizing of a classmate
Commonly confused: ostracize or ostracise?
ostracize vs ostracise
Ostracise is just the British spelling of ostracize.
Practice
After he lied to the team, his teammates ___ him and no one would sit with him.
Choose one answer.
Ostracized means deliberately shut out socially. The other verbs describe positive or neutral actions that do not match the situation.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ostracize”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.