Penitentiary

How to spell penitentiary

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce penitentiary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does penitentiary mean?

1. nounA state or federal prison for people convicted of serious crimes.

Penitentiary in a sentence

• The convicted fraudster was sent to a federal penitentiary for ten years.

• Guards at the penitentiary conducted a full search of every cell.

Where does penitentiary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb paenitere, meaning 'to cause or feel regret', which gave the noun paenitentia, 'repentance' or 'sorrow for wrongdoing'. In Medieval Latin this produced paenitentiarius, originally describing a Church officer who dealt with penance and the absolving of sins. English picked the word up in the 1400s in that religious sense, and an associated adjective meaning 'relating to penance' followed. By the late 1700s the noun had shifted toward its modern meaning: a prison designed not merely to punish but to make offenders repent and reform, the idea being that confinement would lead to penitence. The same Latin root sits inside the everyday word 'penitent' and the religious term 'penance', and remembering that link helps explain the awkward spelling, since the core is penitent followed by the place-naming ending -iary rather than a simple -ary.

How the word is built

• penitent- (from Latin paenitentem: being sorry, repenting)
• -iary (noun suffix denoting a place or office)