penal Hear it!

penal Definition

pe·nal (pē′nəl)

adjective

  1. of, for, or constituting punishment, esp. legal punishment
  2. specifying or prescribing punishment a penal code
  3. making a person liable to punishment a penal offense

Etymology: ME < L poenalis < poena, punishment (> pain) < Gr poinē, penalty, fine < IE *kwoina, punishment < base *kwei-, to heed, respect, avenge > Sans cáyatē, (he) avenges, Lith káina, price

penal Related Forms
pe′·nally adverb
penal Synonyms

penal

modif.

punitive, causing suffering, retributive, chastening, reformatory, corrective, correctional, punishing, punitory.

penal Usage Examples

Modifies a noun

  • servitude: Penal servitude will only be like waiting for her at a wayside station.
  • substitution: The doctrine of penal substitution is a case in point.
  • colony: Children were sent to the penal colonies for seven years for stealing a rabbit!
  • reformer: The at times lazy assertion by penal reformers that they do has done little to enhance the cause of prison reform.
  • atonement: Mark Cartledge reports on the symposium held at the London School of Theology to further public debate on the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.
  • sanction: The Enforcement Notice itself lacks the necessary teeth where penal sanctions can not be imposed at that stage.

Modifying Another Word

  • not: Admittedly, it's not penal substitution... And if Julian of Norwich or ( as Jody says ) Matt.
  • very: Quite often this is at a very penal rate.
penal Quotes

   Never under the most despotic of infidel Governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specificöthe never-failing nostrum of all state physicians from the days of Draco to the present time; death. Is there not blood enough upon your penal code that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you?

—Rochdale