From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpillorypil‧lo‧ry1 /ˈpɪləri/ verb (pilloried, pillorying, pillories) [transitive] CRITICIZEif someone is pilloried, they are publicly criticized by a lot of people, especially in newspapers etc The education secretary was pilloried by the press for his latest proposals.Grammar Pillory is usually passive.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
pillory• Middleton suffered the ultimate humiliation of being pilloried by his colleagues in front of the television cameras.• Carter was pilloried for his military policies.• Harper was pilloried in the press after his team's sixth consecutive defeat.• We do not want to pillory people without cause.• They were clearly on the lookout for a second opening to pillory their headmistress.pillorypillory2 noun (plural pillories) [countable] SCJa wooden frame with holes for someone’s head and hands to be locked into, used in the past as a way of publicly punishing someone → the stocks at stock1(9)Examples from the Corpus
pillory• The gardens contain many trees and a large collection of orchids, as well as old tombstones, Manueline windows and a fifteenth-century pillory.Origin pillory2 (1200-1300) Old French pilori 