PUNISHMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does punishment mean? 

• PUNISHMENT (noun)
  The noun PUNISHMENT has 1 sense:

1. the act of punishing

  Familiarity information: PUNISHMENT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PUNISHMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of punishing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

penalisation; penalization; penalty; punishment

Hypernyms ("punishment" is a kind of...):

social control (control exerted (actively or passively) by group action)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "punishment"):

castigation; chastisement (verbal punishment)

corporal punishment (the infliction of physical injury on someone convicted of committing a crime)

cruel and unusual punishment (punishment prohibited by the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution; includes torture or degradation or punishment too severe for the crime committed)

detention (a punishment in which a student must stay at school after others have gone home)

correction; discipline (the act of disciplining)

economic strangulation (punishment of a group by cutting off commercial dealings with them)

imprisonment (putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment)

medicine; music (punishment for one's actions)

self-punishment (punishment inflicted on yourself)

stick (threat of a penalty)

penance; self-abasement; self-mortification (voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some wrongdoing)

Derivation:

punish (impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on)

 Context examples 

It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It is equally certain, too, that whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient punishment.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His punishment followed his conduct, as did a deeper punishment the deeper guilt of his wife.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, for I come fresh up to the punishment.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Punishment failed to break his spirit.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Wrongdoing always brings its own punishment, and when Jo most needed hers, she got it.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Now he has got his well-deserved punishment.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Elinor gloried in his integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his punishment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)