capital punishment
noun
punishment by death for a crime; death penalty.
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Nearby words
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- capital loss,
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- capital offense,
- capital outlay,
- capital resources,
- capital ship,
- capital stock,
- capital structure,
- capital sum
Origin of capital punishment
First recorded in 1575–85
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for capital punishment
The capital-punishment man was the Marquis of Beccaria, and that of makes a great difference in Europe.
Stories of Invention|Edward E. Hale
capital punishment
noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
capital punishment
The infliction of the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes. (See capital offense.)
Note
In the United States, capital punishment has been an extremely controversial issue on legal, moral, and ethical grounds. In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was not, in principle, cruel and unusual punishment (and not, therefore, unconstitutional), but that its implementation through existing state laws was unconstitutional. In 1976, the Supreme Court again ruled that the death penalty was not unconstitutional, though a mandatory death penalty for any crime was. Thirty-nine states now practice the death penalty.
The death penalty for a crime.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.