These words refer, by means of a metaphor of disfigurement, to the lasting harm or discredit that may attach to someone because of an impropriety or injustice. As treated here, they all imply a distinction between such a disfigurement and those flaws that are present as an innate part of one’s character. A person may acquire a stigma because of some improper act of his own or, more arbitrarily, because of an unfortunate situation not of his own making: prevented from seeking office by the stigma of his perjury conviction; the dull eyes and pinched minds of children who thus already gave evidence of bearing the stigma of poverty. Sometimes the special point of the word is the disapproval of society rather than actual injury done to the person disapproved of: a community that placed a stigma on anyone interested in the arts.

Stain , blot and taint are almost exclusively restricted to the discredit that someone has brought upon himself; the discredit is most often the result of a breach of morals. Of the three, stain suggests the greatest or most serious breach: a stain on her reputation that she could never eradicate. Blot , by contrast, can be used almost euphemistically to extenuate a breach as accidental or slight: a record that like anyone else’s showed a blot or two here and there. Clashing with this implication, the word appears sometimes in orotund rhetoric to mean an especially heinous disfigurement: a political ideology that is a blot on the name of democracy. In this sense, it is part of a common but shop-worn expression: a blot on the escutcheon. Taint suggests a moral breach slighter than either stain or blot . Leaving aside the use in which it refers to a slight but innate flaw, it still stresses a vague or subtle imprint and may suggest, in fact, a less permanent discrediting than any of these other words: surrounded by the taint of a scandal that would, nevertheless, fade with time. Even the underlying metaphor here is unique in suggesting a slight but permeating discolouration more than a single but plainly observable scar.

Mark is the least specific in this context and carries the fewest overtones. It has so many other uses that its sense of disfigurement would have to be made clear by context: a mark against him; accusations that left a mark on his reputation. Stigmata is the one word here that does not imply shame or dishonour, referring instead to marks said to appear miraculously on the hands and feet of certain saints, marks that correspond to the wounds inflicted at the Crucifixion.

A brand was originally a mark burnt on criminals or slaves to proclaim their status; it is now an easily identifiable design put on cattle with a hot iron to indicate ownership. Figuratively used, brand is a close synonym of stigma, but suggests an even greater dishonour or notoriety, which like the burnt-on mark is difficult or impossible to eradicate: a man bearing the brand of having informed against his comrades; the brand of illegitimacy once placed on innocent children.