penalty

/ˈpɛnəlti/

/ˈpɛnəlti/

Other forms: penalties

A penalty is a punishment or consequence for doing something wrong, such as having to pay a fee for not bringing your library book back when it was due.

In hockey, players who break the rules have to sit in "the penalty box." Just like the penalty box punishes hockey players, all penalties are punishments for doing something wrong. Going to prison is the penalty for serious crimes. Detention is the penalty for misbehaving in school. Often, penalty applies to payments people have to make for breaking a financial contract of some kind.

Definitions of penalty

1. noun

   the disadvantage or painful consequences of an action or condition
   “neglected his health and paid the penalty”

   antonyms:

   reward

   benefit resulting from some event or action

   type of:

   disadvantage

   the quality of having an inferior or less favorable position
2. noun

   (games) a handicap or disadvantage that is imposed on a competitor (or a team) for an infraction of the rules of the game
   types:

   game misconduct

   (ice hockey) a penalty that suspends a player for the remainder of a game (but allows the team to send in a substitute for the suspended player)

   type of:

   handicap

   advantage given to a competitor to equalize chances of winning
3. noun

   a payment required for not fulfilling a contract
   types:

   requital, retribution

   a justly deserved penalty

   forfeit, forfeiture

   a penalty for a fault or mistake that involves losing or giving up something

   amercement, fine, mulct

   money extracted as a penalty

   library fine

   fine imposed by a library on books that overdue when returned

   type of:

   payment

   a sum of money paid or a claim discharged
4. noun

   the act of punishing
   synonyms: penalisation, penalization, punishment, sanction

   types:

   castigation, chastisement

   verbal punishment

   corporal punishment

   the infliction of physical injury on someone convicted of committing a crime

   cruel and unusual punishment

   punishment prohibited by the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution; includes torture or degradation or punishment too severe for the crime committed

   detention

   a punishment in which a student must stay at school after others have gone home

   correction, discipline

   the act of punishing

   economic strangulation

   punishment of a group by cutting off commercial dealings with them

   imprisonment

   putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment

   medicine, music

   punishment for one's actions

   self-punishment

   punishment inflicted on yourself

   stick

   threat of a penalty

   penance, self-abasement, self-mortification

   voluntary self-punishment in order to atone for some wrongdoing

   beating, drubbing, lacing, licking, thrashing, trouncing, whacking

   the act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows

   self-flagellation

   self-punishment inflicted by whipping

   spanking

   the act of slapping on the buttocks

   electric shock

   the use of electricity to administer punishment or torture

   capital punishment, death penalty, executing, execution

   putting a condemned person to death

   gantlet, gauntlet

   a form of punishment in which a person is forced to run between two lines of men facing each other and armed with clubs or whips to beat the victim

   kick in the butt

   punishment inflicted by kicking the victim in the behind

   lapidation, stoning

   the act of pelting with stones; punishment inflicted by throwing stones at the victim (even unto death)

   type of:

   social control

   control exerted (actively or passively) by group action