CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does capital punishment mean? 

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

1. putting a condemned person to death

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Putting a condemned person to death

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

capital punishment; death penalty; executing; execution

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

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

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

burning; burning at the stake (execution by fire)

hanging (a form of capital punishment; victim is suspended by the neck from a gallows or gibbet until dead)

burning; electrocution (execution by electricity)

beheading; decapitation (execution by cutting off the victim's head)

crucifixion (the act of executing by a method widespread in the ancient world; the victim's hands and feet are bound or nailed to a cross)

 Context examples 

Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But his imperial majesty, fully determined against capital punishment, was graciously pleased to say, that since the council thought the loss of your eyes too easy a censure, some other way may be inflicted hereafter.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I was frightened when I became conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment? —I, who even in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and righteousness of capital punishment?

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)