castigate

Etymology

Early 17th cent., borrowed from Latin castīgātus, past participle of castīgō (“I reprove”), from castus (“pure, chaste”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱes- (“cut”). Doublet of chastise and chasten, taken through Old French. See also chaste.

verb

1. (transitive, formal) To punish or reprimand someone severely.
   Perhaps disarmed by his own scandalous behaviour with Bathsheba, he was in no position to castigate his son for a similar fault. 1999, Robert P. Gordon, I & II Samuel: A Commentary, Zondervan, page 264
2. (transitive, formal) To execrate or condemn something in a harsh manner, especially by public criticism.
   The curse of avarice and cupidity / Is all my sermon, for it frees the pelf. / Out come the pence, and specially for myself, / For my exclusive purpose is to win / And not at all to castigate their sin. 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 261
   But despite all this, for Barkan, the universalist notion of an 'Ottoman feudalism' was anathema: he castigated this idea as the concentrated expression of the anti-Ottomanism of the Kemalist Enlightenment. 2016, Halil Berktay, Suraiya Faroqhi, New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History, Routledge, page 150
   Lewis should have castigated the reasoning employed rather than the emotion, which offers no clue as to which side of the argument a person will adopt. 2001, Klaus R. Scherer, Angela Schorr, Tom Johnstone, Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research, Oxford University Press, page 59
   From the outset, this issue becomes an often double-edged sword wherein Japan is both valorized and castigated. 2012, James King, Under Foreign Eyes: Western Cinematic Adaptations of Postwar Japan, John Hunt Publishing, page 1
3. (transitive, rare) To revise or make corrections to a publication.