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ostracize

os·trac·izeUK /ˈɒstɹəsaɪz/verb

ostracize is spelled O-S-T-R-A-C-I-Z-E, 3 syllables: os·trac·ize. The wrong spelling people search most is ostrasize: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Ostracize is a verb meaning “To ban a person from a city for five or ten years through the procedure of ostracism”.

How many letters and syllables are in ostracize?

Letters9: O-S-T-R-A-C-I-Z-E
Syllables3: os·trac·ize
In writingabout once in every 16 million words; the 121,279th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched3; the most searched, ostrasize, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell ostracize?

Ostracize is spelled O-S-T-R-A-C-I-Z-E. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for ostracize in either form.

ostracizethe right spelling570 searches a month
ostrasizes in place of c60 searches a month
ostricizei in place of a30 searches a month
ostrisizei in place of a, s in place of c20 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is ostracize?

Ostracize appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 121,279th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce ostracize?

  • UK /ˈɒstɹəsaɪz/
  • /ˈɑstɹəˌsaɪz/
  • Canada /ˈɒstɹəˌsaɪz/

Ostracize has 3 syllables, split os·trac·ize in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-I_learned_some_phrases-ostracize.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of ostracize

  • ostracizes present, singular, he/she/it
  • ostracizing participle, present
  • ostracized participle, past
  • ostracise

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does ostracize mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    BritishUSTo ban a person from a city for five or ten years through the procedure of ostracism.

  2. 2

    BritishUSTo exclude a person from a community or from society by not communicating with them or by refusing to acknowledge their presence; to refuse to associate with or talk to; to shun.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Ostracize in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchostraciser (to ban a person from a city for five or ten…), mettre au ban (to exclude a person from a community or from…)
Germanostrakisieren (to ban a person from a city for five or ten…), ächten, ausgrenzen, ausschließen, bannen, verfemen (to exclude a person from a community or from…)
Portugueseostracizar (to ban a person from a city for five or ten…), excluir (to exclude a person from a community or from…)
Spanishostracizar (to ban a person from a city for five or ten…), aislar, excluir, marginar (to exclude a person from a community or from…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does ostracize come from?

From Ancient Greek ὀστρακίζω (ostrakízō, “to banish from a city by ostracism”), from ὄστρᾰκον (óstrăkon, “earthenware vessel; fragment of such a vessel, potsherd”) (from the fact that when voting was held to decide whether to banish people, their names were inscribed on potsherds) + -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō, suffix forming verbs)). The English word is cognate with French ostraciser.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after ostracize