punish
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English punischen, from Anglo-Norman, Old French puniss-, stem of some of the conjugated forms of punir, from Latin puniō (“to inflict punishment upon”), from poena (“punishment, penalty”); see pain. Displaced Old English wītnian and (mostly, in this sense) wrecan.
Inflected forms:
form: punishes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: punishing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: punished
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: punished
pos: verb
tags: past
form: punishe
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person.
It was not from the want of proper laws that dangerous principles had been disseminated, and had assumed a threatening aspect, but because those laws had not been employed by the executive power to remedy the evil, and to punish the offenders.
The law needs to punish this behaviour as a deterrent to others.
But officials here maintain that their methods do make a difference, and they follow it up with post-release programs. The aim of Bastoy is not to punish or seek revenge, Nilsen said. The only punishment is to take away the prisoner’s right to be a free member of society.
His mother had punished him when he'd deserved it. She'd loved him, he was “all she had,” but she'd punished him, too.
gloss: To treat harshly and unfairly.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: But each effort that Anna makes —and she has attempted many— meets with obstacles from a welfare bureaucracy that punishes single mothers for initiative and partial economic self-sufficiency.
Homer, moreover, gives the impression that the Sun punished Odysseus's men; but we are later told that the Sun cannot punish individual men […]
The rider who comes back on his horse in mid-air over a fence is punishing his horse severely.
RDG explains: "From April 1 2026, the following tickets, Anytime, Off-Peak, Day Travelcards and most Ranger and Rover tickets, will no longer be refundable on the day they become valid for travel." It calls the £40m it thinks it loses "refund abuse", which it explains as "refunds on tickets that have been used but not scanned or endorsed, where a customer falsely states that they did not travel". I'm sure such abuse takes place (and that it's done by passengers). But RDG is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and punishing many millions of honest passengers by making tickets more restrictive.
gloss: To handle or beat severely; to maul.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
transitive
gloss: To consume a large quantity of.
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
transitive
examples: A few moments later, we were all sitting around the veranda of the hunters' dining hall, punishing the gin, as usual.
Synonyms: amerce
castigate
chasten
chastise
come down on
correct
fix someone's wagon
have someone's guts for garters
have someone's head
have someone's hide
give it to someone
give someone what for
give what for
gruel
malavogue
nail someone to the wall
penalize
penance
punish
tan someone's hide
tar out
teach someone a lesson
Antonyms: forgive
let off
reward
Related words: pain
take the law into one's own hands
Derived words: corporally punish
mispunish
outpunish
overpunish
prepunish
punishability
punishable
punishee
punisher
punishing
punishment
repunish
telish
telishment
Translations: