Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A grammatical unit that is syntactically independent and has a subject that is expressed or, as in imperative sentences, understood and a predicate that contains at least one finite verb.
  • noun The penalty imposed by a law court or other authority upon someone found guilty of a crime or other offense.
  • noun Archaic A maxim.
  • noun Obsolete An opinion, especially one given formally after deliberation.
  • transitive verb To impose a sentence on (a criminal defendant found guilty, for example).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To pass or pronounce sentence or judgment on; condemn; doom to punishment.
  • To pronounce as judgment; express as a decision or determination; decree.
  • To express in a short, energetic, sententious manner.
  • noun Way of thinking; opinion; sentiment; judgment; decision.
  • noun A saying; a maxim; an axiom.
  • noun A verdict, judgment, decision, or decree; specifically, in law, a definitive judgment pronounced by a court or judge upon a criminal; a judicial decision publicly and officially declared in a criminal prosecution.
  • noun In grammar, a form of words having grammatical completeness; a number of words constituting a whole, as the expression of a statement, inquiry, or command; a combination of subject and predicate.
  • noun Sense; meaning.
  • noun Substance; matter; contents.
  • noun In music, a complete idea, usually consisting of two or four phrases. The term is used somewhat variously as to length, but it always applies to a division that is complete and satisfactory in itself.
  • noun A brief response or antiphon sung by the choir in a church service.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Sense; meaning; significance.
  • noun An opinion; a decision; a determination; a judgment, especially one of an unfavorable nature.
  • noun A philosophical or theological opinion; a dogma.
  • noun (Law) In civil and admiralty law, the judgment of a court pronounced in a cause; in criminal and ecclesiastical courts, a judgment passed on a criminal by a court or judge; condemnation pronounced by a judicial tribunal; doom. In common law, the term is exclusively used to denote the judgment in criminal cases.
  • noun A short saying, usually containing moral instruction; a maxim; an axiom; a saw.
  • noun (Gram.) A combination of words which is complete as expressing a thought, and in writing is marked at the close by a period, or full point. See Proposition, 4.
  • noun a saying not easily explained.
  • transitive verb To pass or pronounce judgment upon; to doom; to condemn to punishment; to prescribe the punishment of.
  • transitive verb obsolete To decree or announce as a sentence.
  • transitive verb obsolete To utter sententiously.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To declare a sentence on a convicted person; to doom; to condemn to punishment.
  • verb obsolete To decree or announce as a sentence.
  • verb obsolete To utter sententiously.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the period of time a prisoner is imprisoned
  • noun (criminal law) a final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed
  • verb pronounce a sentence on (somebody) in a court of law
  • noun a string of words satisfying the grammatical rules of a language

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, opinion, from Old French, from Latin sententia (perhaps dissimilated from *sentientia), from sentiēns, sentient-, present participle of sentīre, to feel; see sent- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French sentence, from Latin sententia ("way of thinking, opinion, sentiment"), from sentiens, present participle of sentīre ("to feel, think"); see sentient, sense, scent.

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Examples

  • Example: sentence = her other coat is red var1 = her var2 = his check character to the left of % var1% to be replaced and store the value into var_left check character to the right of % var1% to be replaced and store the value into var_right if both % var_left% and % var_right% contain spaces then replace % var1% with % var2% else move on to next word in % sentence%

    AutoHotkey Community 2009

  • But in my Method the aim is _to repeat as much of the sentence as is possible informing the question and the whole of it in each reply_; and in _question and reply_ the _word_ that _constitutes the point of both_ is to be especially _emphasized_, and in this way _the mind is exercised on each word of the sentence twice_ (once in question and once in answer), and _each word of the sentence is emphasized in reference to the whole of the sentence_.

    Assimilative Memory or, How to Attend and Never Forget

  • The beauty of this simple Latin sentence is that the (to us) out-of-sequence word order actually reinforces its poetic meaning by beginning with a sort of floating adjective, level, that must wait until the very end before it joins up with its noun, in this case waters.

    Archive 2009-08-01 2009

  • The beauty of this simple Latin sentence is that the (to us) out-of-sequence word order actually reinforces its poetic meaning by beginning with a sort of floating adjective, level, that must wait until the very end before it joins up with its noun, in this case waters.

    The Frog 2009

  • That sentence is code for people die during the crossing.

    Poetry Friday: The Braid 2007

  • The jury -- the -- the judge has 90 days to issue what he calls a sentence, which is (INAUDIBLE) which is the reason he gave the -- the decision he did today.

    CNN Transcript Dec 4, 2009 2009

  • I assume that incoherent sentence translates as "I've never seen a post or link with instructions on how to join the fight".

    The draft scare. Ann Althouse 2006

  • It opens bluntly with the title sentence and then goes on in a rat-a-tat style familiar to Hammett's legion of fans.

    The Guardian World News Paul Harris 2011

  • Truly, though not yet taken, the sentence is already written.

    Chapter 17 2010

  • You just know that the system has failed disasterously when a person accused of a serious offence shouts ‘get in’ when his sentence is announced … … ….

    Another satisfied “customer” walks away laughing. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

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