punitive.
Inflicting punishment; punishing.
Meaning & usage
Inflicting punishment; punishing.
Beijing imposed punitive sanctions on Canada.
The jury awarded $10,000 in punitive damages.
Where this word comes from
From Middle French punitif, from Medieval Latin pūnitīvus, from pūniō (“to punish”).
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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.