How to Use chasten in a Sentence

chasten

verb
  • His reign has had notable highs but chastening lows.
    — Jack Pitt-Brooke, New York Times, 16 June 2026
  • Black girls called out more overall, but were also chastened at a higher rate than other kids who called out.
    — Natalie Jacewicz, The Cut, 28 June 2017
  • Xavier, at times, looked like a team chastened by the physicality, or at least a team unable to cope with it.
    — Patrick Brennan, Cincinnati.com, 19 Mar. 2018
  • What needs to change if the round of 16 is to bring more than just chastening elimination?
    — Sebastian Stafford-Bloor, The Athletic, 18 Feb. 2025
  • The crew members creep out of their cabins, chastened, relieved, curious to see what the outside world looks like.
    — Bucky McMahon, Esquire, 14 Sep. 2015
  • Collin Street Bakery says it has been chastened by the experience.
    — star-telegram, 11 Mar. 2014
  • At the very least, these conditions should be enough to chasten the press critics who suggest that the answers are obvious.
    — Nancy Gibbs, TIME, 25 Apr. 2024
  • Sunday’s chastening 5-0 loss at home to Liverpool could have been even worse.
    — Roshane Thomas, The Athletic, 30 Dec. 2024
  • The results may chasten some of the investors demanding that the car companies keep traveling down this path.
    — Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 24 Mar. 2023
  • When the Giants reached out, Sandoval jumped at the chance to return home, a prodigal son chastened over his misdeeds.
    — Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY, 29 June 2018
  • Jackson’s side needed it in what has been a chastening start to his second season Down Under.
    — Beren Cross, The Athletic, 24 Jan. 2025
  • Feeling chastened, perhaps, Neymar trimmed his mohawk before the final group-stage game.
    — Dan Adler, Vanities, 29 June 2018
  • The episode chastened the APA, which established the rule in 1973.
    — Leonard L. Glass, STAT, 28 June 2018
  • By now too many of us are wary of what’s being sold — sensitized by two years of deepfakes and soft slop, chastened by two decades of social media and rage-farming.
    — Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 9 Feb. 2026
  • Chastened by the letter, Carson offered a gracious on-air apology.
    — Jeet Heer, New Republic, 28 Aug. 2017
  • Speaking to me more recently, Reiss recalled a chastening encounter with an old classmate.
    — Darryn King, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2024
  • There should be no question of whether Indiana needed some soul searching, after a pair of chastening defeats last week.
    — Zach Osterman, The Indianapolis Star, 24 Jan. 2024
  • One man who might be particularly chastened by this snub is Aarons, who was singing the new gaffer's praises just a month ago to the same publication.
    — SI.com, 22 Aug. 2019
  • For anyone wondering if men in music have felt chastened and reflective in the #MeToo era, there's your answer.
    — August Brown, latimes.com, 27 Apr. 2018
  • The idea was to uphold the social order, to prevent someone from passing themselves off as a member of a different class, to keep women covered and the poor chastened.
    — Constance Grady, Vox, 27 June 2019
  • And these days, a Silicon Valley chastened by years of butting heads with government might see cooperation as the smarter move.
    — Julia Greenberg, Wired News, 20 May 2015
  • Is that at all going to chasten more Republicans other than Mitch McConnell?
    — NBC News, 19 Dec. 2021
  • Further, chastened by the backlash, the Warren Court, for the next four years with rare exceptions, maintained the status quo on a broad array of issues.
    — Time, 14 Nov. 2025
  • However, there have been chastening defeats to Leicester City and Manchester City in the mix.
    — SI.com, 8 Sep. 2019
  • He was chastened against Belgium, even discouraging the referee from checking VAR at one point.
    — Jonathan Wilson, SI.com, 7 July 2018
  • Yet Coll’s chastening new book about the events leading up to the Iraq War, in 2003, shows just how often the agency was flying blind.
    — The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
  • The Commission had been chastened by an earlier controversy over a device called the Hush-A-Phone.
    — Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica, 13 Dec. 2017
  • Imagine sitting chastened on a stage while the Oprah Winfrey reads all the mean tweets written about your book in front of a live audience and television cameras for posterity.
    — Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 7 Mar. 2020
  • Recognition of what Coates is really up to — in The Message and elsewhere — should chasten those who have long treated him as the moral conscience of the West.
    — Tal Fortgang, National Review, 29 Dec. 2024
  • No matter the scale of its most recent failure, or the number of people who, chastened, insist that the End of History is nigh, socialism always seems to return for more.
    — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review, 13 Feb. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'chasten.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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