Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To subject to a penalty for an offense, sin, or fault.
- v. To inflict a penalty for (an offense).
- v. To handle roughly; hurt: My boots were punished by our long trek through the desert.
- v. To exact or mete out punishment.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To inflict a penalty on; visit judicially with pain, loss, confinement, death, or other penalty; castigate; chastise.
- To reward or visit with pain or suffering inflicted on the offender: applied to the crime or offense: as, to punish murder or theft.
- To handle severely: as, to punish an opponent in a boxing-match or a pitcher in a baseball game; to punish (that is, to-stimulate by whip or spur) a horse in running a race.
- To make a considerable inroad on; make away with a good quantity of.
- Synonyms Chasten, etc. (see chastise), scourge, whip, lash, correct, discipline.
Wiktionary
- v. To cause to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action.
- v. To cause great harm to. (a punishing blow)
- v. To dumb down severely or to the point of uselessness or near-uselessness.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To impose a penalty upon; to afflict with pain, loss, or suffering for a crime or fault, either with or without a view to the offender's amendment; to cause to suffer in retribution; to chasten
- v. To inflict a penalty for (an offense) upon the offender; to repay, as a fault, crime, etc., with pain or loss.
- v. To injure, as by beating; to pommel.
- v. To deal with roughly or harshly; -- chiefly used with regard to a contest.
WordNet 3.0
- v. impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on
Etymologies
- Middle English punissen, punishen, from Old French punir, puniss-, from Latin poenīre, pūnīre, from poena, punishment, from Greek poinē; see kwei-1 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“_punish_ sin while at the same time He _pardons_ it, -- can punish it in the Substitute while He pardons it in the sinner, -- it is not until he is enabled to apprehend the doctrine of _vicarious_ atonement, that his doubts and fears respecting the possibility and reality of the Divine mercy are removed.”
“You will not punish -- I say _punish_ -- a gentle girl like her for loving her father too well. ”
“The idea of using public shame to punish is still with us, by the way.”
“In the first line he first uses the word punish, which becomes a recurrent theme in the poem, just as it must have been in his rambling thoughts.”
“Roberto's undoing is his resemblance to her father - she latches on to him as a surrogate who she can "punish" - and I suspect that this goes deeper than his physical appearance.”
“Our community needs helping hands, and what better way to "punish" - community service would be a win/win situation for all concerned.”
“My point is just that I understand why some might use the word punish, because they see a correlation between religion-inspired prudery and lifestyle condemnation and religion-inspired rejection of abortion rights.”
“I'm 1 who has read a version of Paine's Common Sense where on the last page he says "an avidity to punish is to be avoided ...”
“From Paine's Common Sense I still like best of him from what I found in 1 version: "an avidity to punish is to be avoided ...”
“When Mao gave the word to punish the marshals, the army did not make a move to support them.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘punish’.
whichbe Like a pun. Nov 22, 2008
anydelirium '"For shame, Heathcliff!" said I. "It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive."
'"No," he replied. "God won't have the satisfaction that I shall."' -Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte Feb 20, 2008