Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Serving to castigate; tending to correction; corrective; punitive.
  • noun pl. castigatories (-riz). Something that serves to castigate; specifically, an apparatus formerly used in punishing scolds. Also called ducking-stool and trebucket.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Punitive in order to amendment; corrective.
  • noun An instrument formerly used to punish and correct arrant scolds; -- called also a ducking stool, or trebucket.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Serving or tending to castigate.
  • noun obsolete An instrument formerly used to punish and correct arrant scolds; the ducking stool or trebucket.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • On the contrary, besides his castigatory and carping toungue, he does not seem to offer any constructive criticism for the economic doldrums we are in.

    Economic stimulus reaches GOP critic's turf 2009

  • But this is not endemic to the writing itself, but a rather ruthless castigatory impulse directed towards self.

    Love/Hate Write : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits 2007

  • The castigatory sermon which Fräulein Rottenmeier had held in reserve for Heidi was put off till the following day, as she felt too exhausted now after all the emotions she had gone through of irritation, anger, and fright, of which Heidi had unconsciously been the cause.

    Heidi 2000

  • He was wending his way through the editorial page two columns and seven letters on the hypocrisy of the Tory party's Recommitment to Basic British Values as reflected in the recent actions of the East Norfolk MP and his Paddington rent boy when he realized he'd read the same castigatory paragraph three times without the slightest idea of its contents.

    In the Presence of the Enemy George, Elizabeth 1996

  • But the justice which respects things done is either that of government, or jurisdiction or judgment; and this, again, they affirm to be either remunerative or corrective, but that corrective is either castigatory or vindicatory.

    A Dissertation on Divine Justice 1616-1683 1967

  • At the same moment Mr. Lott, his right arm being weary, brought the castigatory exercise to an end.

    The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories George Gissing 1880

  • And it would have required all the civility possessed by Earl Russell to frame despatches to avoid a castigatory war, such as that with which we are now menaced because some of our upper ten thousand believed what the

    London: Saturday, August 26, 1865 1865

  • Perhaps an older reader has read only H. G. Wells's The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, with Wells at his castigatory best.

    Top stories from Times Online 2011

  • Next I tried to take off the castigatory appearance, by inserting the bristles in a kind of handle; but then it looked as if the poor woman had been engaged in the capacities of housemaid and child-keeper at once, and, fatigued with her double duty, had sat down on the wine-cooler, with the broom in one hand, and the bairn in the other.

    Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) 1824

  • A number of excellent suggestions to help people avoid the inadvertent expression of prejudice are offered, albeit interspersed among excoriating, castigatory comments that are entirely irrelevant to The Cause, hence diminish the impact and strength of purpose of both.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XV No 2 1984

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