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ostracism.

In ancient Athens (and some other cities), the temporary banishment by popular vote of a citizen considered dangerous to the state.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɒstɹəsɪz(ə)m/UK/ˈɒs trəˌsɪz əm/General-American, US
  1. In ancient Athens (and some other cities), the temporary banishment by popular vote of a citizen considered dangerous to the state.

    countable · historical · uncountable
  2. Banishment by some general consent.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable
  3. Temporary exclusion from a community or society.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ὀστρακισμός (ostrakismós, “banishment by means of voting with pot shards”), from ὀστρακίζω (ostrakízō, “ostracize”) + -ισμός (-ismós, “-ism”), from ὄστρακον (óstrakon, “clay pot”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.