chastisement

plural chastisements · alternative chastizement

1. countableuncountableThe act of chastising; rebuke; punishment.

   Abolition of defence of reasonable chastisement

   2019, Scottish Parliament, “Section 1, section title”, in Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019, page 1

   5 more examples

   Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods On late offenders, that he now doth lack The very instruments of chastisement; So that his power, like to a fangless lion, May offer, but not hold.

   c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]

   But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 53:5

   All this he called “doing his duty by their parents;” and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that “he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live.”

   1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

   Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of entering[;] I mean but to point out the warnings and the successive steps with which my chastisement approached.

   1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 119

   It seems to me that as he does not respond to this extremely conciliatory treatment it may be well to try whether a change of treatment might not produce a more satisfactory result. If praise and courtesy only result in narrow, bitter partisanship, perhaps a little well-merited chastisement may procure some geniality.

   1929 December 24, Winston Churchill, Hansard

   Synonyms: castigation, chastening, admonishment, blame, brickbatting, castigation, censure, onus