on pain of

1. Also, under pain of. Subject to the penalty of a specific punishment. For example, The air traffic controllers knew that going on strike was on pain of losing their jobs. At one time this idiom often invoked death as the penalty, a usage that is largely hyperbolic today, as in We'd better be back on time, under pain of death. [Late 1300s]

Example Sentences

As the encampments grew beyond the central city, the City Council passed an ordinance banning them near schools, parks and day-care centers on pain of ticketing.

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But the state laws and the NLRB’s ruling make the same distinctions between meetings at which attendance is voluntary, and those that workers are required to attend on pain of discipline.

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Monday, participants in the protest were given until 2 p.m. to clear out and identify themselves to campus police, on pain of suspension that would prevent them from taking final exams or graduating, if they were scheduled to do so this year.

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Prigozhin, who banned his men from using alcohol and drugs on pain of severe punishment, died two months after leading a brief mutiny against Russia's defence establishment that posed the biggest challenge to Putin's rule since the former KGB spy came to power in 1999.

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Thailand's lese-majeste law forbids anyone from insulting the monarchy on pain of harsh jail sentences.

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