punishing
[puhn-i-shing]
- causing or characterized by harsh or injurious treatment; severe; brutal: The storm was accompanied by punishing winds.
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Origin of punishing
punish
[puhn-ish]
- to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
- to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.
- to handle severely or roughly, as in a fight.
- to put to painful exertion, as a horse in racing.
- Informal. to make a heavy inroad on; deplete: to punish a quart of whiskey.
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- to inflict punishment.
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Origin of punish
Synonyms
See more synonyms for punish on Thesaurus.com1. chastise, castigate. 1, 2. penalize.
Synonym study
1. Punish, correct, discipline refer to making evident public or private disapproval of violations of law, wrongdoing, or refusal to obey rules or regulations by imposing penalties. To punish is chiefly to inflict penalty or pain as a retribution for misdeeds, with little or no expectation of correction or improvement: to punish a thief. To correct is to reprove or inflict punishment for faults, specifically with the idea of bringing about improvement: to correct a rebellious child. To discipline is to give a kind of punishment that will educate or will establish useful habits: to discipline a careless driver.
Antonyms
1, 2. reward.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for punishing
Contemporary Examples
The Feds are more interesting in finding out who is doing the recruiting rather than punishing those being recruited.
The king set about punishing Marshal, opposing his attempts to establish his family in their lands in Ireland and Wales.
It seems the universe is punishing, violent, random, chaos, and so of course you become controlling.
So punishing Putin, not the people of Russia, should be our primary aim.
And his Socialist Party candidates predictably failed, a punishing defeat surprising only in its scope.
Historical Examples
I have lived a very nasty, horrible life, and now God is punishing me as I deserve.
Father SergiusLeo Tolstoy
Upon his return, the King was for punishing such an offence as this.
The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, CompleteMadame La Marquise De Montespan
But if the former were blameless, where is the justice of punishing them for the faults of others?
The Electoral Votes of 1876David Dudley Field
Then you are likely to give up your plan of punishing the man for defaming and degrading you?
The Eternal CityHall Caine
The matter of discovering and punishing the culprit devolved on Lambert alone.
The Duke Of Chimney ButteG. W. Ogden
punish
- to force (someone) to undergo a penalty or sanction, such as imprisonment, fines, death, etc, for some crime or misdemeanour
- (tr) to inflict punishment for (some crime, etc)
- (tr) to use or treat harshly or roughly, esp as by overexertionto punish a horse
- (tr) informal to consume (some commodity) in large quantitiesto punish the bottle
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Word Origin
C14 punisse, from Old French punir, from Latin pūnīre to punish, from poena penalty
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for punishing
adj.
"hard-hitting," 1811, present participle adjective from punish (v.). Related: Punishingly.
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punish
v.
c.1300, from Old French puniss-, extended present participle stem of punir "to punish," from Latin punire "punish, correct, chastise; take vengeance for; inflict a penalty on, cause pain for some offense," earlier poenire, from poena "penalty, punishment" (see penal). Colloquial meaning "to inflict heavy damage or loss" is first recorded 1801, originally in boxing. Related: Punished; punishing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper