Ostracize from Greek ostrakizein — to banish by potsherd vote. Ostrakon (potsherd) from PIE *h₃est- (bone) — fired clay felt hard as bone/shell. Athenian citizens scratched exile-names on broken pottery; 6,000 shards could exile a man for 10 years. The pottery disappeared but the punishment endured.
To exclude or banish someone from a group, community, or society; originally, to banish by popular vote in ancient Athens.
From Greek 'ostrakizein' (ὀστρακίζειν, to banish by ostrakon-vote), from 'ostrakon' (ὄστρακον, a potsherd, a tile, an oyster shell), from PIE *ost- (bone), related to Greek 'osteon' (ὀστέον, bone) and 'ostreon' (ὄστρεον, oyster). In Athens of the 5th century BC, citizens voted annually on whether to exile a political figure considered dangerous to democracy; each voter scratched a name onto a clay potsherd (ostrakon), and if enough votes accumulated, the named person was banished for ten years without loss of property. English borrowed the verb
Archaeologists found caches of ostraka in the Athenian Agora with many shards targeting the same politician written in identical handwriting — ancient political operatives prepared pre-inscribed 'ballots' for illiterate voters. One of the earliest documented cases of electoral manipulation, revealed by pottery.