Definition (Verb) To chastise, correct, inflict corrective punishment on; to subdue by punishment or discipline, to chasten; now usually, to punish or rebuke severely. In Context "Most groups – ethnic or religious, national, clan, or tribe – think of themselves as good and worthy, and they tend to castigate their own members who might question these assumptions." John Borneman, Political Crime and the Memory of Loss, 2011.