Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism.
- n. An official rebuke, as by a legislature of one of its members.
- v. To criticize severely; blame. See Synonyms at criticize.
- v. To express official disapproval of: "whether the Senate will censure one of its members for conflict of interest” ( Washington Post).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Judgment; opinion.
- n. Judicial sentence; formal condemnation.
- n. Eccles., a penalty imposed upon an offender. It may consist in public rebuke or in temporary or permanent suspension from communion or from office. See
discipline . - n. The act of criticizing, especially of finding fault; criticism; expression of blame or disapprobation; faultfinding; condemnation; animadversion.
- n. A custom which formerly prevailed in several manors in Cornwall and Devonshire, England, by which all the inhabitants above the age of sixteen were summoned to swear fealty to the lord of the manor, to pay eleven pence per poll, and a penny a year ever after as censemoney or common fine. The persons thus sworn were called censers.
- n. Synonyms Admonition, Monition, etc. (see admonition), stricture, reprobation, disapproval, reflection, dispraise, reproval.
- To estimate; reckon; regard; consider.
- To judge; adjudge; pass judgment on; sentence.
- Eccles., to discipline by public rebuke, etc. See censure, n., 3.
- To criticize, especially adversely; find fault with and condemn; blame; express disapprobation of: as, to censure a man, or his manners or conduct; to censure a book.
- Synonyms Reprove, Rebuke, Reprimand, Censure, Remonstrate with, Expostulate with, Reproach, chide, reprehend, take to task, rate, berate, scold, upbraid, lecture. To reprove is to admonish with disapprobation. To rebuke is to reprove strongly or sharply. To reprimand is to reprove officially; it is the act of one having authority. To censure is to express an unfavorable opinion; it is less personal than the previous terms. Remonstrate with and expostulate with are more argumentative and imply more of advice than either reprove or censure; they also apply only to acts now taking place or about to take place, while censure applies only to what is past. To reproach a person is to lay blame upon him in direct address, and with feeling, to endeavor to shame him with what he has done. The words advance in the degree of likelihood that the person reproved, etc., does not admit the fault for which he is taken to task. See the distinction of corresponding nouns under admonition.
- To pass an opinion, especially a severe opinion; judge: followed by of or on.
Wiktionary
- n. The act of blaming, criticizing, or condemning as wrong; reprehension.
- n. An official reprimand.
- n. The state of excommunication.
- v. to criticize harshly
- v. to formally rebuke
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Judgment either favorable or unfavorable; opinion.
- n. The act of blaming or finding fault with and condemning as wrong; reprehension; blame.
- n. Judicial or ecclesiastical sentence or reprimand; condemnatory judgment.
- v. obsolete To form or express a judgment in regard to; to estimate; to judge.
- v. To find fault with and condemn as wrong; to blame; to express disapprobation of.
- v. To condemn or reprimand by a judicial or ecclesiastical sentence.
- v. obsolete To judge.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the state of being excommunicated
- n. harsh criticism or disapproval
- v. rebuke formally
Etymologies
- 1350–1400 Middle English, from Old French, from Latin censūra ("censor's office or assessment"), from censere ("to tax, assess, value, judge, consider, etc."). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Latin cēnsūra, censorship, from cēnsor, Roman censor; see censor. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Illustrations: A resolution of censure may be amended by striking out the word censure and inserting the word thanks, for both relate to opinion of certain conduct; refusing to censure is not the same as expressing thanks.”
“In this way, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, although not expressly so stated in the decretals, the term censure became the equivalent of a certain class of ecclesiastical penalties, i.e., interdict, suspension, and excommunication.”
“The kid probably deserves First prize, but, by daring to attack the field of Goebbels Warming, probably managed to get a unique censure from the prize committee typically reserved for Science Fair projects that attempt to justify Eugenics or Lysenkoism — and totally unlike that kid who did a baking soda volcano and still got a “blue ribbon” … everyone gets an award these days, you know … unless their project is clearly unPC.”
Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Awesome Analysis of Urban Biases on Surface Temperature Records
“Much of the censure is coming from an "infrastructure ü ber alles" crowd that too readily ignores that the costs of these big projects are often grossly underestimated and their benefits significantly exaggerated.”
The Wall Street Journal: Christie Is Right About the Hudson River Big Dig
“Violation of that license board may result in censure or reprimand or license revocation.”
“I cannot see a way out of this mess for Israel; if they clampdown they will face even more censure from the world "community", if they give way to Palestinian demands then Israel will not exist in another 20 years.”
“Nevertheless, papal approval or censure is invoked several times in the sources on the Children's Crusade, often in very different, contradictory ways. back”
A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
“Earlier this year PBS distributed to its affiliates only the expurgated version of A Company of Soldiers, a Frontline documentary about American forces in Iraq, because of concerns that obscenities shouted by military personnel during an ambush might bring censure from the FCC; it released the unbleeped version only to those local stations willing to sign waivers absolving PBS of liability for any fines.”
“And then Russ Feingold comes up with the idea of censure, which is going to go nowhere.”
“(The latter, at least, can be dispensed with at this meeting, and, indeed, you well may feel that a vote of censure is more in order when you have heard the provocative things I propose to say.)”
Neighbours Taken For Granted or Dr. Livingstone (Merchant) I Presume?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘censure’.
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EN - confusables
Similar words meaning different things
accept, except, adverse, averse, advice, advise, affect, effect, aisle, isle, all together, altogether and 134 more...
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501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Wk 21
apprehension, desideratum, egregious, rendered, prerogative, anachronistic, gainsay, censure, jargon, masquerade, imperative
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 297 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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EU Buzz - single words (1+2+3)
1. Strictly EU terms with special European meaning used only in the EU
+
2. Keywords central to the understanding of the EU (people working for the EU are usually able to give thematic...acceleration, action, additionality, administrator, agenda, agricultural, agri-environmental, agriflation, agri-food, applicant, approach, assent and 1325 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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the author [suggests] adjectives
allude to, refer to, hint, insinuate, intimate, present, prompt, inspire, advise, notes, proposes, suggests and 42 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for censure.

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