BharatNotes Ostracism
noun (uncountable and countable)Usage in a UPSC answer
Khap panchayats in several North Indian states have imposed social ostracism — including economic boycotts, denial of water access, and village expulsion — on families that sanction inter-gotra or inter-caste marriages, practices that courts have repeatedly held to be illegal and violative of constitutional rights.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
ostracise/ostracize (verb), ostracised (adjective), ostraciser (noun)
Root
Greek ostrakismos, from ostrakon = potsherd, tile (on which Athenian citizens inscribed the name of the person to be banished); -ism = practice of
Etymology
From Greek ostrakismos, derived from ostrakon (a potsherd or broken piece of clay tile), the medium on which Athenian citizens inscribed a name during the 5th-century BCE exclusion vote. If 6,000 votes named the same person, that individual was banished for 10 years. The English word entered usage in the 17th century, retaining the Greek root but generalising the sense to any form of collective social exclusion.
Memory Hook
OSTRA-cism: from ostrakon = pottery shard. Ancient Athenians scratched a name on a broken pot and dropped it into a jar — if your name appeared enough times, you were thrown out like a broken pot-sherd. Ostracism = being discarded like a shard.
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