noun
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a penalty or sanction given for any crime or offence
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the act of punishing or state of being punished
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informal rough treatment
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psychol any aversive stimulus administered to an organism as part of training
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonpunishmentnoun
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overpunishmentnoun
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prepunishmentnoun
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repunishmentnoun
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self-punishmentnoun
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propunishmentadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of punishment
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English punysshement, from Anglo-French punisement, Old French punissement; equivalent to punish + -ment
Explanation
Punishment is the penalty you have to pay when you're caught doing something bad. A teenager's punishment for missing her curfew might be helping her dad clean the garage. When someone is officially penalized for a mistake or a crime, that's punishment. Stealing a car could result in a punishment involving jail, while pinching your little sister might mean a punishment as mild as sitting in a chair and thinking about ways to be nicer next time. The Latin root of punishment and its related verb, punish, is punire, "punish, correct, take vengeance for, or cause pain for some offense."
Vocabulary lists containing punishment
Psychology
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"Nadia the Willful"
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The House of Hades
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But Eckert escaped any individual punishment that threatened his job following an FA investigation into his conduct that lasted for more than four months.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Cornell denies that this was the only punishment it handed down.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
Pike got two doses of pentobarbital, a sedative that at least 17 states use for capital punishment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
Lee suspended the carrying out of capital punishment in the southern state following the failed execution pending an independent investigation.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Zeke had known it was inevitable, but it felt like a punishment coming so soon after his victory over Ms. Pfister.
From "Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody" by Patrick Ness
But a number of agents who spoke to BBC Sport believe players will be advised to wait for clarity on the punishments before even considering opening talks.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
It also left corporate leaders in Mexico concerned that their companies could be next, given that the order contained few details on the compliance failures that led to the punishments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
Cooke added that along with standard punishments for not fulfilling a fixture, there was were also possible "undetermined" extras.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
The parts maker apologized Monday and announced punishments for four executives including the dismissal of its human-resources director.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
I’d heard about the kind of punishments that Jewish people were subjected to nowadays.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
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.
