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indeterminate sentence

American  

noun

Criminal Law.

  1. a penalty, imposed by a court, that has relatively wide limits or no limits, as one of imprisonment for one to ten years.

indeterminate sentence British  

noun

  1. law a prison sentence the length of which depends on the prisoner's conduct

"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

Etymology

Origin of indeterminate sentence

First recorded in 1870–75

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.