chastening

chastening is the present participle and gerund of chasten.

Meaning of chasten

chasten (third-person singular simple present chastens, present participle chastening, simple past and past participle chastened)

To make chaste.

Synonyms:

purify
(archaic) To chastize; to punish or reprimand for the sake of improvement.
- I will be his father, and he shall be my sonne: if hee commit iniquitie, I will chasten him with the rodde of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Samuel 7:14
Synonyms:

chastise, discipline, amerce, castigate, come down on, correct, fix someone's wagon, have someone's guts for garters, have someone's head, have someone's hide
To render humble or restrained.

Synonyms:

restrain, moderate

chastening (plural chastenings)

The act by which somebody is chastened.
- But these chastenings are for his sins, as appears by what follows[…]a. 1758, Jonathan Edwards, On Original Sin
Synonyms:

castigation, chastisement, correction, gruel, punishment, punition

plural	chastenings

What does chastening mean?: Chastening means the act by which somebody is chastened.
What is chastening the present participle and gerund of?: Chastening is the present participle and gerund of chasten.
What part of speech is chastening?: Chastening is a noun.
What is the plural of chastening?: The plural of chastening is chastenings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: chastening (page history and authors); chasten (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “chastening.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chastening. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.