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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

penal.

Of or relating to punishment.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈpiːnəl/
  1. Of or relating to punishment.

    not-comparable
    penal servitude
  2. Subject to punishment; punishable.

    not-comparable
    a penal offence
  3. Serving as a place of punishment.

    not-comparable
    a penal colony
  4. Exorbitant.

    not-comparable
    a penal rate of interest
Where this word comes from

From Old French peinal, from Medieval Latin penalis, from Latin poenalis, from poena (“punishment”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “punishment”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoynéh₂.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.