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🗓️ 25 November 2024
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 25, 2024 is:
chastise • \chass-TYZE\ • verb
To chastise someone is to criticize them harshly for doing something wrong.
// The waiter was chastised for forgetting the customer’s order.
Examples:
“… what I’m saying is that we must acknowledge that hypocrisy exists all around us and not jump to chastise and blame someone every time we encounter an example of it. If we rush to judge and shame someone each time we see hypocrisy, we risk hindering progress in solving some of our biggest problems.” — Stephanie Dillon, Rolling Stone, 5 Apr. 2024
Did you know?
If you want to understand the meaning of chastise (which comes from the Anglo-French verb castier, meaning “to discipline”), you could do worse than to turn to popular music. Pop, rap, jazz, rock, country—there’s not a single genre that isn’t full of songs penned from the point of view of jilted and/or cheated lovers chastising—that is, harshly criticizing—the one who did them wrong. Nearly every song on Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade, for example, is a master class in chastisement (chastisement being, of course, the noun form of chastise), featuring such lyrics as “What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you” and “Ten times out of nine, I know you’re lying.” Chastise itself pops up in lyrics occasionally, too, as sung by artists including Guns N’ Roses (“So don’t chastise me or think I mean you harm”), Dr. Dre (“Fool, you better recognize / Death Row came to chastise”), and Janet Jackson (“Control and chastise / An instrument of punishment / Like a whip”). Jackson’s use is notable in particular for representing the word’s oldest sense, less common but still in use, of “to inflict punishment on (as with a whip).”
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0:42.1 | Today's word is chastise, spelled C-H-A-S-T-I-S-E. Chastise is a verb. To chastise someone is to |
0:51.3 | criticize them harshly for doing something wrong. |
0:58.2 | Here's the word used in a sentence from Rolling Stone by Stephanie Dillon. |
1:04.2 | What I'm saying is that we must acknowledge that hypocrisy exists all around us and not jump to chastise and blame someone every time we encounter an example of it. |
1:10.5 | If we rush to judge and shame someone each time we see hypocrisy, |
1:14.6 | we risk hindering progress in solving some of our biggest problems. |
1:19.6 | If you want to understand the meaning of the word chastise, |
1:23.6 | which comes from the Anglo-French verb, Castier, meaning to discipline, you could do worse than |
1:29.4 | turn to popular music. Pop, rap, jazz, rock, country, there's not a single genre that isn't |
1:35.3 | full of songs penned from the point of view of jilted and or cheated lovers, chastising, |
1:41.9 | that is, harshly criticizing, the one who did them wrong. Nearly every |
1:46.3 | song on Beyonce's 2016 album, Lemonade, for example, is a masterclass in chastisement, |
1:53.1 | chastisement being, of course, the noun form of chastise, featuring such lyrics as, |
1:58.2 | What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you, |
2:01.0 | and ten times out of nine, I know you're lying. |
2:04.6 | Chastise itself pops up in lyrics occasionally, too, |
... |
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