If you castigate someone or something, you speak to them angrily or criticize them severely. Marx never lost an opportunity to castigate colonialism She castigated him for having no intellectual interests. + castigation cas·ti·ga·tion Bradley's public castigation of the police chief. to criticize or punish someone severely (past participle of castigare, from castus ( CHASTE) + -igere (from agere ))