How to Use ostracism in a Sentence

ostracism

noun
  • Jaron was unaware of the ostracism.
    — Annie Proulx, New Yorker, 10 Aug. 2025
  • Hold off and risk ostracism from their smartphone-toting peers.
    — Jacqueline Nesi, Scientific American, 13 Aug. 2024
  • Its laws were strict, and sentences carried out in its name could include death or ostracism.
    — Max Bearak, Washington Post, 9 Aug. 2019
  • The platforms weren't used to spread the calls for the boycotts but rather were the targets of the public ostracism.
    — Peter Suciu, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022
  • Faced with her own looming ostracism in a school that sometimes feels more like a prison, what is Nora to do?
    — Los Angeles Times, 17 Feb. 2022
  • Dissenting opinion brings ostracism, loss of work and grants and friendships.
    — Sal Rodriguez, Oc Register, 19 Sep. 2025
  • The court papers paint a picture of how ostracism in a police department works.
    — Dallas News, 7 Oct. 2022
  • Yet there is seemingly little or no ostracism of the Russian skaters here.
    — JerÉ Longman, New York Times, 11 Feb. 2018
  • Yet rarely do Western activist groups call for global ostracism of Iran.
    — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 30 Jan. 2020
  • What the men didn’t know was that Williams was a social scientist who’d been looking for a way to study ostracism.
    — Will Storr, The Cut, 25 Apr. 2018
  • But regardless of the reason for the silent treatment, it can be received by victims as ostracism.
    — Daryl Austin, The Atlantic, 26 Mar. 2021
  • Many albinos face threats from organ and limb harvesters, and wider ostracism is also a problem.
    — Thomas Page, CNN, 13 June 2017
  • This ostracism, this otherness, is among the most distressing feelings that can be felt by our social species.
    — Virginia Chamlee, Peoplemag, 30 June 2023
  • But that did not stop them from despairing over their own status as a reservoir of infection, or fearing ostracism.
    — Amy Harmon, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2020
  • The liberty to march to your own drummer without ostracism or molestation is in peril.
    — Bruce Fein, Baltimore Sun, 3 Apr. 2024
  • And what can be done to purge the conformism that deters complaints about toxic colleagues, for fear of ostracism or career setbacks?
    — The Economist, 8 Apr. 2020
  • Yet nearly all the cases have ended with severe and lasting ostracism, or forced banishment.
    — The Economist, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Leprosy is also not very contagious, despite what the severe stigma and ostracism of the past may have led you to believe.
    — Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Because her daughter was biracial, Greve faced ostracism and was forced out of her apartment in New York.
    — Matt Schudel, Washington Post, 9 July 2022
  • Boudin’s claims also failed due to the willingness of high profile Democrats to break ranks and risk political ostracism.
    — Michael Bernick, Forbes, 15 June 2022
  • After several years of ostracism, Díaz-Balart returned to public life but with a low profile.
    — Nora Gámez Torres, miamiherald, 2 Feb. 2018
  • They’re used to being made fun of by now, and if anything the ostracism by no-coiners probably just reinforces their in-group identity.
    — Washington Post, 22 Jan. 2022
  • Ruby’s ostracism leads to a vortex of death and destruction, a scourging of a nearly Biblical fury.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2022
  • If the bully can’t be contained by the cajoling effects of ridicule or ostracism, the other men reach a consensus, make a plan and execute him.
    — Richard Wrangham, WSJ, 10 Jan. 2019
  • The family struggled with ostracism and loneliness.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
  • Critics say his focus is too narrow, and elevates the rights of students who haven’t traditionally faced the most ostracism in schools.
    — Michelle Hackman, WSJ, 28 July 2018
  • His show at the Garden was a non-stop party that showed the world that the ostracism and exclusion of dembow is woefully outdated.
    — Katelina Eccleston, Rolling Stone, 24 Oct. 2021
  • Poignantly, Montgomery’s colossal achievements came at the price of ostracism and censure from members of her own family.
    — V.m. Braganza, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Research shows that even very subtle forms of ostracism, such as not having a ball tossed to you in an experimental game of catch with strangers, make life feel less meaningful.
    — Clay Routledge, National Review, 16 Jan. 2018
  • The social ostracism that follows in conformist Japan for those suspected of a crime, and their families, means few people speak out.
    — Washington Post, 10 June 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ostracism.' 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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