{"id":7318,"date":"2026-03-17T02:58:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T02:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7318"},"modified":"2026-03-17T03:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:01:13","slug":"word-of-the-day-objurgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2026\/03\/17\/word-of-the-day-objurgate\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Objurgate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to some extent to the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is objurgate<\/em>. Pronounced \/ \u02c8\u0252b d\u0292\u0259r\u02ccge\u026at \/ or \/ \u0259b\u02c8d\u0292\u025cr ge\u026at \/ (the first pronunciation is easier for a native English speaker since the stress is on the first syllable), this transitive verb means \u201cto reproach or denounce vehemently; upbraid harshly; berate sharply\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/objurgate<\/a>). Merriam-Webster defines it as \u201cto decry vehemently\u201d or \u201cto castigate with harsh or violent language\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/objurgate<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word first appears in English in the \u201c1610s, from Latin obiurgatus<\/em>, past participle of obiurgare \u2018<\/em>to chide, rebuke,\u2019 from ob- <\/em>(see ob-<\/strong><\/a>) + iurgare \u2018<\/em>to quarrel, scold,\u2019 from phrase iure agere \u2018<\/em>to deal in a lawsuit,\u2019 from ablative of ius \u2018<\/em>right; law; suit\u2019 (see just<\/strong><\/a> (adj.)) + agere \u2018<\/em>to set in motion, drive forward, do, perform,\u2019 also \u2018plead a cause at law\u2019 (from PIE root *ag-<\/strong> \u2018to drive, draw out or forth, move\u2019)\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/objurgate<\/a>). Interestingly, the word objurgation<\/em> appears \u201cc. 1500, objurgacioun<\/em>, \u2018act of scolding or rebuking,\u2019 from Old French objurgacion <\/em>(15c.) and directly from Latin obiurgationem <\/em>(nominative obiurgatio<\/em>) \u2018a chiding, reproving, reproof,\u2019 noun of action from past-participle stem of obiurgare <\/em>(see objurgate<\/strong><\/a>)\u201d (ibid.), leading one to ask if objurgate<\/em> is perhaps a back formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1850, \u201cNathaniel Hawthorne’s \u2018The Scarlet Letter\u2019 [was] published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields in Boston\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/march\/16<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Scarlet Letter is one of those \u201cclassic\u201d novels that many were required to read in high school, so we are probably all somewhat remember the basic story, but here\u2019s the synopsis from Brittanica:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock. Hester believes herself a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as punishment for her adultery. After Hester refuses to name her lover, Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding his identity. When he learns that the man in question is Arthur Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader of those exhorting her to name the child\u2019s father, Chillingworth proceeds to torment him. Stricken by guilt, Dimmesdale becomes increasingly ill. Hester herself is revealed to be a self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for committing adultery with the minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other. Although she is initially scorned, over time her compassion and dignity silence many of her critics.
\u201cIn the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of revenge. Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses his adultery before dying in Hester\u2019s arms. Only Hester can face the future bravely, as she prepares to begin a new life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe. Years later Hester returns to New England, where she continues to wear the scarlet letter. After her death she is buried next to Dimmesdale, and their joint tombstone is inscribed with \u2018ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/The-Scarlet-Letter-novel-by-Hawthorne<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not an Americanist during my career as an English professor, so I cannot really say in how much esteem the novel is currently held by the academics. I think I remember thinking that it was a pretty interesting novel when I was young, but I\u2019m guessing young people today probably don\u2019t appreciate it. Maybe I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is mostly a sad novel, sad because it says something about human nature that is unfortunate. That a community would objurgate a person in such a dramatic and public way in the name of a religion that includes the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53\u20138:11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, my master\u2019s degree is in Old and Middle English literature, and one of my favorite Middle English poems is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was discovered in a manuscript designated Cotton Nero a.10. There are three other poems in that manuscript: Patience<\/em>, Cleanness<\/em> (or Purity<\/em>), and Pearl<\/em>. Pearl<\/em> is a dream-vision poem that focuses on a father who has lost his daughter, who is named Pearl. I wonder if this poem was the inspiration for the name of Hester Prynne\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is \u201cHester Prynne and her daughter Pearl from Hawthorne\u2019s The Scarlet Letter. Hand-colored halftone of an illustration\u201d (https:\/\/herkafadanses.com\/en_us\/inceleme-the-scarlet-letter-kizil-damga\/<\/a>). The article is a 2021 review in Turkish of the novel with the subtitle \u201c\u2019A scarlet letter \u201cA\u201d in a pitch-black field\u2026\u2019 A perfect romance story depicting the bigotry and prejudice prevalent in colonial America\u201d (ibid.). I don\u2019t read Turkish, so I didn\u2019t pursue the entire article, but the subtitle encouraged me to avoid the effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to some extent to the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is objurgate. Pronounced \/ \u02c8\u0252b d\u0292\u0259r\u02ccge\u026at \/ or \/ \u0259b\u02c8d\u0292\u025cr ge\u026at \/ (the first pronunciation is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,284,976,977],"class_list":["post-7318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-objurgate","tag-scarlet-letter","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7320,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7318\/revisions\/7320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}