PENALTY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does penalty mean? 

• PENALTY (noun)
  The noun PENALTY has 4 senses:

1. the act of punishing

2. a payment required for not fulfilling a contract

3. the disadvantage or painful consequences of an action or condition

4. (games) a handicap or disadvantage that is imposed on a competitor (or a team) for an infraction of the rules of the game

  Familiarity information: PENALTY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PENALTY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of punishing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

penalisation; penalization; penalty; punishment

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

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

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

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:

penalise (impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A payment required for not fulfilling a contract

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

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

payment (a sum of money paid or a claim discharged)

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

requital; retribution (a justly deserved penalty)

forfeit; forfeiture (a penalty for a fault or mistake that involves losing or giving up something)

amercement; fine; mulct (money extracted as a penalty)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The disadvantage or painful consequences of an action or condition

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

neglected his health and paid the penalty

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

disadvantage (the quality of having an inferior or less favorable position)

Antonym:

reward (benefit resulting from some event or action)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(games) a handicap or disadvantage that is imposed on a competitor (or a team) for an infraction of the rules of the game

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

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

handicap (advantage given to a competitor to equalize chances of winning)

Domain category:

game (a contest with rules to determine a winner)

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

game misconduct ((ice hockey) a penalty that suspends a player for the remainder of a game (but allows the team to send in a substitute for the suspended player))

 Context examples 

A length of time beyond a specified date during which rules or penalties are withheld.

(Grace Period, NCI Thesaurus)

At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The strange void in Ruth's nature had been filled, and filled without danger or penalty.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

This would occasion a diversion in Jip's favour, and some inking of his nose, perhaps, as a penalty.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Alternatively, you may receive a tax bill triggered by an error your accountant made but that you must pay immediately or else incur penalties.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward.

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

I remembered Charley Furuseth, and knew this man’s sadness as the penalty which the materialist ever pays for his materialism.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished; but without presuming to look forward to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider a man of sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret: vexation that must rise sometimes to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness, in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)