as in to blame
to subject (someone) to harsh public criticism
The press pilloried the judge for her decision.
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Recent Examples of pillory
Last year, in response to some political parodies that used images created by artificial intelligence, including one that pilloried Vice President Kamala Harris, the Legislature passed and Newsom signed two measures to outlaw such tomfoolery.
—
Dan Walters, Mercury News, 5 Sep. 2025
But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.
—Michelle L. Price, Fortune, 23 Aug. 2025
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pilloried Biden for his administration’s massive deficit spending.
—Kenneth S. Rogoff, Foreign Affairs, 19 Aug. 2025
The series has never strived to be anything more than opulent fluff, but it still gets consistently pilloried for its lack of realism.
—Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pillory
Dan Walters, Mercury News, 5 Sep. 2025
But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.
—Michelle L. Price, Fortune, 23 Aug. 2025
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pilloried Biden for his administration’s massive deficit spending.
—Kenneth S. Rogoff, Foreign Affairs, 19 Aug. 2025
The series has never strived to be anything more than opulent fluff, but it still gets consistently pilloried for its lack of realism.
—Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pillory
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pillory
Verb
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Congressional Republican leaders have even begun blaming him for the federal government shutdown.—
Ben Adler,
USA Today,
2 Nov. 2025
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Several reasons were to blame for the scary-low turnout, including a dearth of new releases as well as the misfortune of Halloween landing on a Friday, which meant families were distracted by trick-or-treating.—
Rebecca Rubin,
Variety,
2 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Local and state officials criticized the immigration operation in the area Friday.—
Zoe Sottile,
CNN Money,
3 Nov. 2025
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Leipold said after a long pause, referencing fines for criticizing officiating.—
Shreyas Laddha,
Kansas City Star,
2 Nov. 2025
Verb
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This came after Nick Saban jokingly scolded himself for not fielding Sayin during their weeks-long overlap in 2023’s postseason at Alabama.—
Alex Kirshner,
New York Times,
2 Nov. 2025
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This way of peering at screen culture from an inexact distance, which also comes up in a scolding scene where Ethan scrolls aimlessly through something like TikTok, rankles in a play that is otherwise so precise about physical time and space.—
Jackson McHenry,
Vulture,
31 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Then Vice President Cheney condemned those behind the torture scandal, while at the same time defending water-boarding as a useful means of extracting vital intelligence (many intelligence experts say water-boarding is torture, and its victims will say anything to avoid further abuse).—
Ben Wedeman,
CNN Money,
5 Nov. 2025
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There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less with every election consigning us simply to more of the same.—
TIME Video,
Time,
5 Nov. 2025
Verb
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As many as a third of LGBTQ+ people who were arrested were denounced, that is reported to the Nazis, by their friends and family.—
Kate Sosin,
Them.,
31 Oct. 2025
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The policy has drawn sharp criticism from human rights organizations and international law experts, who have denounced the attacks as extrajudicial killings.—
Antonio María Delgado,
Miami Herald,
30 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pillory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pillory. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.
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