as in punitive
inflicting, involving, or serving as punishment
a chastening hour spent cleaning floors should discourage them from further pranks
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
1
as in punishing
to inflict a penalty on for a fault or crime
chastened the child with five minutes of sitting in the corner
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in humiliating
to reduce to a lower standing in one's own eyes or in others' eyes
the unexpected loss to a second-rate player really chastened the tournament's top-seeded tennis star
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in condemnation
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Recent Examples of chastening
James Wallace, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2025
The American suffered a chastening 6-0, 6-0 defeat to Iga Świątek in the Wimbledon final eight weeks ago, the first time in the Open Era that a women’s player has failed to win a single game in the final at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
—Jamie Barton, CNN Money, 6 Sep. 2025
Two months later, his side suffered a 5-2 defeat to Crystal Palace, followed by a chastening 5-0 loss away to Chelsea in May.
—Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 14 Mar. 2025
Market shakeouts are about testing risk tolerances, forcing a rethink of unexamined premises and, at times, chastening the arrogant.
—Michael Santoli, CNBC, 3 Mar. 2025
Noun
His first taste of international cricket was a chastening experience, chalking up the worst bowling figures for an England ODI debutant with 0-76 off seven overs against South Africa at Headingley.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for chastening
Adjective
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The move follows last month’s imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian goods, which the White House justified as a punitive measure for India’s importation of Russian oil.—
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Iran issued a warning to world powers as the United Nations Security Council prepared to vote Friday on whether to permanently lift sanctions, pushing back against threats to snap back punitive measures over its nuclear program.—
Verb
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When an authority is actively suppressing or punishing speech itself, the space open to debate gets much smaller very quickly.—
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Over on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, the talk was all about rebuffing notions that Comey’s yet unseen indictment is all about Trump punishing his critics.—
Verb
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This announcement, humiliating the involved member, is harmful.—
Noun
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In a wide-ranging interview in Doha, two weeks after surviving an Israeli air-strike on a Hamas compound in the Qatari capital, Ghazi Hamad highlighted growing international condemnation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza and the spate of countries who have recognized Palestinian statehood.—
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The announcement and the administration's claims have drawn widespread condemnation from medical experts and researchers.—
Verb
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Further discrediting itself, Thursday’s writeup includes a marketing pitch for the SquareX platform.—
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Wolfenbarger’s defense attorneys began to focus on discrediting Norma as a witness after prosecutors relied on her testimony to show the jury that her daughter Melissa had allegedly suffered abuse at the hands of her husband before her 1998 disappearance, according to WSB-TV.—
Verb
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Learning anything new as an adult is humbling.—
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So in this more cosmic sense, anyway, the Chiefs on Sunday hardly must beat visiting Philadelphia in a rematch of the humbling 40-22 TKO the Eagles administered in Super Bowl LIX.—
Noun
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Huge spikes were also reported at Butler High School, where 23 percent of students are proficient in state reading assessments, but 40 percent have already checked out books this year — or double the number who did so last year, according to JCPS data.—
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This assessment, though probably true of celebrity figures in general, strikes me as especially apt in Sheen’s case, if only thanks to his constancy in our media landscape over the past four decades.—
Noun
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Like legions of dreamers before him, McGuirk started on film and TV sets as a PA, an often thankless job where random castigations from members of the cast or crew can be par for the course.—
Cite this Entry
“Chastening.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/chastening. Accessed 28 Sep. 2025.
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