| / English Dictionary |
PUNISHMENT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of punishing
Synonyms:
penalisation; penalization; penalty; punishment
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("punishment" is a kind of...):
social control (control exerted (actively or passively) by group action)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "punishment"):
castigation; chastisement (verbal punishment)
corporal punishment (the infliction of physical injury on someone convicted of committing a crime)
cruel and unusual punishment (punishment prohibited by the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution; includes torture or degradation or punishment too severe for the crime committed)
detention (a punishment in which a student must stay at school after others have gone home)
correction; discipline (the act of disciplining)
economic strangulation (punishment of a group by cutting off commercial dealings with them)
imprisonment (putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment)
medicine; music (punishment for one's actions)
self-punishment (punishment inflicted on yourself)
stick (threat of a penalty)
penance; self-abasement; self-mortification (voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some wrongdoing)
Derivation:
punish (impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on)
Context examples:
It would ease your conscience, and possibly your punishment.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“So much for thy spiritual punishment,” he cried.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But I perceive your thoughts; you do not credit my narrative and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the punishment which is his desert.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
An individual who is presently or not long ago worked or offered to assist without pay at an institution where persons are confined for punishment and to protect the public.
(Current or Recent Employee or Volunteer in Jail or Prison, NCI Thesaurus)
An institution where persons are confined for punishment and to protect the public.
(Correctional Institution, NCI Thesaurus)
Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The dwarf, at my entreaty, had no other punishment than a sound whipping.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
A stimulus causing an organism to behave so as to minimize exposure to it (as in negative reinforcement or punishment procedures).
(Aversive Stimulus, NCI Thesaurus)
Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
You may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment beyond what you can have merited!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
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