condemned

Pluralcondemned

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of condemn.

   The court condemned the old tenement after inspectors found it unsafe.

   Critics have condemned the new policy as deeply unfair.

   Note

   The regular -ed form, with one spelling for both the past (critics condemned it) and the participle (it has been condemned). Every sense of the verb passes into it: denouncing, sentencing, damning and declaring something unfit for use. That is why the adjectives built on it read so easily as passives. Context decides. Condemned by critics is the "criticized" meaning, and a condemned tenement is the unsafe-building meaning.

2. 2
   adjective

   Officially declared unfit and unsafe for people to live in.

   The condemned building has stood empty behind fencing for years.

   Once the inspectors left, the whole block was condemned overnight.

   Similaruninhabitable, unfit, unsafe

   Oppositehabitable, livable, safe

   Note

   Said of buildings, and usually reached through the passive: a home will be condemned, or the block was condemned. It grows from the verb's sense of declaring something unfit for use. The declaration belongs to a public authority after inspection, and it normally leads to forced vacating or demolition. A condemned house is more than run-down. It is one people are no longer allowed to live in.

3. 3
   adjective

   Having been judged and sentenced to punishment, or officially ordered to be destroyed or seized.

   The condemned rebels were marched out to the city walls at dawn.

   The tainted shipment was condemned and removed from every store shelf.

   Similardoomed

   Oppositeacquitted, pardoned

   Note

   A judgment that has been passed and is waiting to be carried out. The phrase condemned cell, where someone sentenced to death waits, travels well beyond prisons. In 2023 Christian Wolmar wrote that Great British Railways "may well be back in the condemned cell," meaning the scheme again faced abolition. The sense covers things as well as people: seized goods, or a tainted shipment ordered destroyed.

4. 4
   noun

   A person who has been sentenced to death.

   The condemned spent his final hours writing letters to his family.

   Guards led the condemned to the execution chamber at first light.

   Note

   An adjective doing a noun's work, so it nearly always takes the: the condemned. It never adds -s. One prisoner or many share the same form, and the verb shows which is meant: the condemned was led out, or the condemned were led out. To name a single person without the article, English uses a condemned man or a condemned prisoner.

5. 5
   adjective

   Placed under a curse that dooms one to suffer for eternity.

   Legend held that the condemned ghosts of the drowned crew haunted the cove.

   He woke convinced he was condemned, doomed never to know rest again.

   Similardamned, doomed, cursed, accursed

   Oppositesaved, redeemed, blessed

6. 6
   adjective

   Having been sharply criticized or rebuked.

   Condemned by his own teammates, he barely spoke for the rest of the trip.

   The official walked out condemned, his reputation shredded within a single hour.

   Similarcensured

   Oppositeacclaimed

   Note

   Public censure, not a private telling-off. Kerry Brown's Guardian obituary of Kim Jong-il (2011) calls him one of the most reclusive and widely condemned national leaders. The word pairs naturally with degree adverbs such as widely, and it suits leaders, regimes and policies judged in the open. For a child or an employee taken to task, scolded or reprimanded is the better fit.

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