Other forms: chastened, chastening
To chasten somebody is to correct them so that they behave more humbly. The lesson lands, and the swagger goes.
The word is nearly always passive and nearly always in the past, so a chastened team, a chastened politician, chastened by the experience. What it describes is a change in manner after a setback rather than a punishment itself. It is formal and slightly biblical. The related word chastise means to punish or scold severely, and the two are often confused, though chasten is about the effect and chastise about the act.
1verbchastenTo make someone more humble by correction or setback.
“The defeat had clearly chastened them.”
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eǵ-
Latin
castīgō
Old French
chastier — punish
Middle English
chastien
English, today
chasten
From Middle English chastien, from Old French chastier (“punish”), from Latin castīgō. a doublet of chastise and castigate and related to chaste.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA