stigma

stigma, brand, blot, stain can denote a mark of shame left on a name, reputation, or character.

Stigma, though often implying dishonor or public shame, usually applies to a mark or a charge or judgment that is fastened upon a person or thing or is attached to it so as to discredit it and cause it to be generally disapproved or condemned

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curmudgeonly inability to praise others which has ever been the stigma by which we may recognize the ungenerous— Partridge

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they can attach a social stigma to the relief by taking away the pauper's vote— Shaw

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Brand carries stronger implications of disgrace and infamy than stigma; it often suggests impossibility of removal, permanent social ostracism, and public condemnation

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for the sorrow and the shame, the brand on me and mine, I'll pay you back in leaping flame— Kipling

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it may mean nothing very much to you, but. . . those words carry the ultimate, ignominious brand of incompetency and failure— Sayers

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segregation, however "equal" the physical facilities, does put the brand of inferiority on Negro pupils in the schools— N. Y. Times

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Blot and stain imply a blemish that diminishes the honor of a name or a reputation or that sullies one's reputation for purity or virtue but does not bring either name or reputation into utter disrepute

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thou noteless blot on a remembered name— Shelley

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there are blots on the chronicle, moments of the petulance . . . and the unhappy record of the meaningless and aimless slighting of General de Gaulle. But these are minor blemishes— Anthony West

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to have loved one peerless, without stain— Tennyson

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England will have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without a hand lifted to save him— Parker

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Analogous words: *disgrace, dishonor, opprobrium, odium, shame: contamination, tainting or taint, defilement, pollution (see corresponding verbs at CONTAMINATE)