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An expression of blame or censure; especially, blame expressed to the face; censure for a fault; chiding; reproach. Those best can bear reproof who merit praise. Pope.

Worthy of reproof or censure. Jer. Taylor.

To chide to the face as blameworthy; to accuse as guilty; to censure. What if thy son Prove disobedient, and, reproved, retort, "Wherefore didst thou beget me" Milton.

To return, as an argument, accusation, censure, or incivility; as, to retort the charge of vanity. And with retorted scorn his back he turned. Milton.

To make the object of satire; to attack with satire; to censure with keenness or severe sarcasm. It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. Swift.

Reproachful aspersion; opprobrious censure; defamatory talk, uttered heedlessly or maliciously. You must not put another scandal on him. Shak. My known virtue is from scandal free. Dryden.

The act of reproaching one's self; censure by one's own conscience.

The act of reproving one's self; censure of one's conduct by one's own judgment.

Not much; a little; moderate; as, the censure was to some extent just.

A touch of adverse criticism; censure. [I have] given myself the liberty of these strictures by way of reflection on all and every passage. Hammond.

That to which one resorts for escape or concealment; an artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument, or to justify opinions or conduct; a shift; an evasion. Affect not little shifts and subterfuges, to avoid the force of an argument. I. Watts. By a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render this posi…

To judge; to censure. [Obs.]

t. vi. 25, 27. -- To take to heart. See under Heart. -- To take to task, to reprove; to censure. -- to take to the air, to take off. To take up. (a) To lift; to raise. Hood. (b) To buy or borrow; as, to take up goods to a large amount; to take up money at the bank. (c) To begin; as, to take up a lamentation. Ezek. x…

Charge; censure. [Obs.] Clarendon.

neral's ear. Dryden. An archdeacon, as being a prelate, may thunder out an ecclesiastical censure. Ayliffe.

Vehement threatening or censure; especially, ecclesiastical denunciation; fulmination. He severely threatens such with the thunderbolt of excommunication. Hakewill.

A declamatory strain or flight of censure or abuse; a rambling invective; an oration or harangue abounding in censorious and bitter language. Here he delivers a violent tirade against persons who profess to know anything about angels. Quarterly Review.

A stroke; as, a touch of raillery; a satiric touch; hence, animadversion; censure; reproof. I never bare any touch of conscience with greater regret. Eikon Basilike.

The act of traducing; misrepresentation; ill-founded censure; defamation; calumny. [R.] Shak.

Not censured. [A Latinism. Obs.] B. Jonson.