If you say you would
castigate or
chastise someone in order to chasten them, you demonstrate a good knowledge of the origin of
chasten—all three verbs derive from the Latin verb
castigare, meaning "to punish." (
Castigare combines Latin
castus, which means "pure" and is the source of English
chaste, with the verb
agere, meaning "to lead" or "to drive.")
Castigate,
chastise, and
chasten share the sense of "to subject to severe and often physical punishment," but all three verbs are now as likely to refer to a verbal dressing-down as to a physical lesson.
Chasten (which arrived in English via Anglo-French
chastier) can also be used to mean "to prune of excess, pretense, or falsity." This led to the more general sense of "to make more subdued," although the humility can be imposed by a humiliating situation as easily as by a strict taskmaster.
