OSTRACISM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Ostracism

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/ˈɔstrəsˌɪzəm/ Listen

noun

ostracism n.

(Gr. Antiq.) Banishment by popular vote, a means adopted at Athens to rid the city of a person whose talent and influence gave umbrage.

Banishment; exclusion; as, social ostracism. "Public envy is as an ostracism, that eclipseth men when they grow too great." "Sentenced to a perpetual ostracism from the... confidence, and honors, and emoluments of his country."

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Etymology of 'Ostracism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ostracism" Quotes from Famous Books

... parishioners, who lived in the squalid section of the town, across the river. A frugal, law-abiding lot, they furnished the brawn needed in the three pulp factories and lived a life apart from the balance of the towns-people, bitterly but voicelessly resenting the villagers' careless ostracism of all who came under the easy classification of the term "wop." There existed a tacit agreement among property owners that no house north of the river should be sold or leased to a foreigner, and that no garlic might taint the atmosphere their children breathed ...

— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... that Pepysian self-denial, that Himalayan selectness, which, content with one book-case, would have no tomes in it but porphyrogeniti, books of the bluest blood, making room for choicer newcomers by a continuous ostracism to the garret of present incumbents. There is to us a sacredness in a volume, however dull; we live over again the author's lonely labors and tremulous hopes; we see him, on his first appearance after parturition, "as ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... to "ride your hobby" at a dinner party, and the real truth as to the cause of the sudden social ostracism of young Freddie H——, a New York clubman of some years ago (now happily deceased), is that on one occasion this young fellow, who had developed a craze for marksmanship amounting almost to a ...

— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... organization, there had been for years a wide divergence of opinion. Some advocated the use of international force to prevent a nation from warring against another. Some favored coercion by means of general ostracism and non-intercourse. Some believed that the application of legal justice through the medium of international tribunals and commissions was the only practical method of settling disputes which might become causes of war. And some emphasized ...

— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... is naturally a democratic country, social ostracism is not unknown amongst us. The daughter of any one who "keeps a window," or is at all engaged in trade, is as effectually excluded from society as if she were a moral leper, and although her attainments, intellectually ...

— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

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