noun

1. 1. a decision or judgment, as of a court; esp., the determination by a court of the punishment of a convicted person
   2. the punishment itself
2. Gram. a word or a group of syntactically related words that states, asks, commands, or exclaims something; conventional unit of connected speech or writing, usually containing a subject and a predicate: in writing, a sentence begins with a capital letter and concludes with an end mark (period, question mark, etc.), and in speech a sentence begins following a silence and concludes with any of various final pitches and a terminal juncture
3. Archaic a short moral saying; maxim
4. Music period

Etymology: OFr < L sententia, way of thinking, opinion, sentiment, prob. for sentientia < sentiens, prp. of sentire, to feel, sense

transitive verb sentenced -·tenced, sentencing -·tenc·ing