Penal

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pe=nal

CIDE DICTIONARY

Penal, a. [L. poenalis, fr. poena punishment: cf. F. pénal. See Pain.].

 Of or pertaining to punishment, to penalties, or to crimes and offenses; pertaining to criminal jurisprudence  Milton.  [1913 Webster]

Penal code (Law), a code of laws concerning crimes and offenses and their punishment. -- Penal laws, Penal statutes (Law), laws prohibiting certain acts, and imposing penalties for committing them. -- Penal servitude, imprisonment with hard labor, in a prison, in lieu of transportation. [Great Brit.] -- Penal suit, Penal action (Law), a suit for penalties.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Penal, adj.
1 a of or concerning punishment or its infliction (penal laws; a penal sentence; a penal colony). b (of an offence) punishable, esp. by law.
2 extremely severe (penal taxation).

Idiom

penal servitude hist. imprisonment with compulsory labour.

Derivative

penally adv.

Etymology

ME f. OF penal or L poenalis f. poena PAIN

ROGET THESAURUS

Penal

Punishment

N punishment, punition, chastisement, chastening, correction, castigation, discipline, infliction, trial, judgment, penalty, retribution, thunderbolt, Nemesis, requital, penology, retributive justice, lash, scaffold, imprisonment, transportation, banishment, expulsion, exile, involuntary exile, ostracism, penal servitude, hard labor, galleys, beating, flagellation, fustigation, gantlet, strappado, estrapade, bastinado, argumentum baculinum, stick law, rap on the knuckles, box on the ear, blow, stripe, cuff, kick, buffet, pummel, slap, slap in the face, wipe, douse, coup de grace, torture, rack, picket, picketing, dragonnade, capital punishment, execution, lethal injection, the gas chamber, hanging, electrocution, rail-riding, scarpines, decapitation, decollation, garrotte, garrotto, crucifixion, impalement, firing squad, martyrdom, auto-da-fe, noyade, happy dispatch, hara-kiri, seppuku, drinking the hemlock, punishing, penal, punitory, punitive, inflictive, castigatory, punished, Int, a la lanterne!, culpan paena premit comes, eating the bitter bread of banishment, gravis ira regum est semper, sera tamen tacitis paena venit pedibus, suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo.