Ostracisms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The practice of excluding individuals from a group or society as a form of punishment
2. Instances where a person is deliberately shunned or isolated by their peers for various reasons
3. The act of ostracizing someone, which leads to their social exclusion and potential emotional distress

Etymology: Ancient Athenians used pottery fragments to vote a citizen into exile. Each voter scratched a name on a broken clay shard, or "ostrakon," and whoever drew the most shards against a single man was sent away from the city for a set period, without any crime having been proven. The Greek noun "ostrakismos" named this procedure, built from "ostrakon," meaning clay pot, and the suffix "-ismos," which forms nouns of action or system. Its verb "ostrakizein" meant to banish by this means. English borrowed the word as a learned term from Greek, retaining its original sense of formal banishment by vote. The meaning later widened to the broader idea of being shunned or excluded from a group, so the political punishment became a general social one. The plural "ostracisms" is simply the countable form of this noun, used when referring to several separate acts of exclusion.

Synonyms: exclusions, shunnings

Antonyms: inclusions, acceptances