punish
/ˈpʌnɪʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.95 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer).
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person."
- "It was not from the want of proper laws that dangerous principles had been disseminated, and had assumed a threatening aspect, but because those laws had not been employed by the executive power to remedy the evil, and to punish the offenders."
- "The law needs to punish this behaviour as a deterrent to others."
- "But officials here maintain that their methods do make a difference, and they follow it up with post-release programs. The aim of Bastoy is not to punish or seek revenge, Nilsen said. The only punishment is to take away the prisoner’s right to be a free member of society."
- "His mother had punished him when he'd deserved it. She'd loved him, he was “all she had,” but she'd punished him, too."
- "But each effort that Anna makes —and she has attempted many— meets with obstacles from a welfare bureaucracy that punishes single mothers for initiative and partial economic self-sufficiency."
Etymology
From Middle English punischen, from Anglo-Norman, Old French puniss-, stem of some of the conjugated forms of punir, from Latin puniō (“to inflict punishment upon”), from poena (“punishment, penalty”); see pain. Displaced Old English wītnian and (mostly, in this sense) wrecan.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *kʷey-, punischen, -, puniō