pillory
noun
- whipping post
verb
- to expose to ridicule and abuse
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpɪləɹi/
noun
Etymology: From Middle English pilory, pillorie, from Old French pilori, pellori, which is either from Old Occitan espilori or Latin pīla (“pillar”).
- A framework on a post, with holes for the hands and head, used as a means of punishment and humiliation.
“Maires and Maceris that meanes be betwene / The Kynge and the comon to kepe the lawes / To pũnyſhen on pyleries and pynning ſtoles / Bruſterrs and bakeſters, bochers and cokes / For theſe ar mẽ on this mold þᵉ moſt harme worketh / To the pore people that percel mele byghe[...]”
“Cros·! þou dost no trouþe ; / On a pillori· my fruit to pinne, / He haþ no spot· of Adam sinne ; / Flesch· and veines· nou fleo a-twinne, / Wherfore I· rede of routhe·:”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English pilory, pillorie, from Old French pilori, pellori, which is either from Old Occitan espilori or Latin pīla (“pillar”).
- To put in a pillory.
- To subject to humiliation, scorn, ridicule or abuse.
“There was no malice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a man to whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not know then, though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with that which a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in print.”
“Mike Sarne would end up making a celluloid disasterpiece that is to this day pilloried as one of the worst films ever made.”
- To criticize harshly.
“The breakthrough came through Torres who, pilloried for his miss against Manchester United a week earlier, scored his second goal of the season.”
“[T]o suggest that their mere acquaintance in any way undermines Pinker’s work would be to make the kind of ad hominem fallacy that he rightfully pillories in this book.”