on pain of

Idioms  

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]

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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.

From Los Angeles Times

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.

From Los Angeles Times

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.

From Los Angeles Times

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

From BBC

But what Hokusai and his successors affirm over and over is that there’s no such thing as a pure “culture” divisible from others — not even the culture of a shogunate whose subjects couldn’t leave on pain of death.

From New York Times