scarlet letter

plural scarlet letters

1. historicalThe letter "A" in scarlet cloth required to be worn by those convicted of adultery in 17th-century Puritan New England.

   The Scarlet Letter [title]

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

   1 more example

   In the early seventeenth century, all the colonies of New England enacted harsh laws against unchastity: banishment, imprisonment, severe public flogging, the wearing of scarlet letters and other shaming garments for the rest of one's life.

   2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin, published 2013, page 44

2. broadlyfigurativelyA highly visible stigma.

   The scarlet letters that current discourse has slapped upon people deemed “problematic,” deemed “unreachable” for feminism, have created consternation […]

   2018, Dianna E. Anderson, Problematic: How Toxic Callout Culture Is Destroying Feminism