stigma

4 definitions • 3 examples

a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair:

There is no longer any stigma to being divorced.

Being an unmarried mother no longer carries the social stigma that it used to.

the top of the central female part of a flower, where pollen is received

a strong lack of respect for a person or a group of people or a bad opinion of them because they have done something society does not approve of:

[ C usually sing ] There’s a stigma associated with low-income food programs.

the part of the pistil (= female part) of a flower that receives the pollen (= powder produced by the male part)