Penalty

How to spell penalty

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce penalty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does penalty mean?

1. nounA punishment imposed for breaking a law, rule, or agreement.
2. nounA disadvantage or sanction awarded against a team or player for breaking the rules of a game.

Penalty in a sentence

• The contract sets out a financial penalty for late delivery.

• The referee awarded a penalty after the defender's foul in the box.

• Paying the bill after the due date triggers a small penalty.

• The match was decided by a penalty in the final minute.

Where does penalty come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin poena, meaning 'punishment' or 'penalty', which itself was borrowed from the Greek poine, a fine paid in compensation for blood spilled or a wrong committed. In Medieval Latin this gave rise to poenalitas, the abstract noun for a punishment, and English took it in through Old French penalite during the 1400s. The same poena root quietly sits inside several familiar English words, including 'pain', 'punish', and 'subpoena', all of which carry that ancient sense of suffering or correction. Over time the meaning broadened from a strictly legal fine to any disadvantage imposed for breaking a rule, including the everyday sporting sense. The single 'l' in the middle is the usual spelling slip, since the 'penal' stem has only one before the suffix is added.

How the word is built

• penal- (from Latin poena: punishment)
• -ty (noun suffix forming an abstract noun)