If you stigmatize someone, you have given that person a label — and it's usually a label that is limiting in some way.

In Ancient Greece, a stigma was a brand burned into a slave or a criminal's skin to symbolize disgrace. In the 1500s, the word stigmatize meant literally "to brand or tattoo." Nowadays, to stigmatize is to shame or brand a person in a more symbolic way.

Definitions of stigmatize

v accuse or condemn or openly or formally or brand as disgraceful

“She was stigmatized by society because she had a child out of wedlock”
brand, denounce, mark, stigmatise
Type of:
assign a label to; designate with a label

v mark with a stigma or stigmata

“They wanted to stigmatize the adulteress”
Type of:
make or leave a mark on

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