ostracism

[ os-truh-siz-uh m ]

SEE DEFINITION OF ostracism

nounbanishment

Synonyms for ostracism

MOST RELEVANT

Antonyms for ostracism

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EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR OSTRACISM

Your club, Sir Philip, will do me honour by such an ostracism.

For to Sophia, ostracism had long since become a kind of second nature.

But is our moral condition the true reason of our ostracism?

This is ostracism, and ostracism, so to speak, is a physiological organ of democracy.

This law of ostracism is as dangerous in science as it was of old in politics.

So they banished him by ostracism, and he went to Argos to live.

It was also with Cleisthenes that the measure known as Ostracism originated.

We read of attempts upon his life, of excommunication, and of ostracism.

Ostracism, and two discharges; 41 whites voted of the 4200 who registered.

The banishment of egos, ostracism, makes the people autocrat.

WORD ORIGIN

1580s, a method of 10-year banishment in ancient Athens, by which the citizens gathered and each wrote on a potsherd or tile the name of a man they deemed dangerous to the liberties of the people, and a man whose name turned up often enough was sent away. From Middle French ostracisme (16c.), Modern Latin ostracismus, or directly from Greek ostrakismos, from ostrakizein "to ostracize," from ostrakon "tile, potsherd," from PIE *ost-r-, from root *ost- "bone" (see osseous). The Greek word is related to osteon "bone," ostreion "oyster" (and cognate with German Estrich "pavement," which is from Medieval Latin astracus "pavement," ultimately from Greek ostrakon).