Word.ws English Dictionary

funishment

UK/ˈfʌnɪʃmənt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/ˈfʊnɪʃmənt/

funishment noun: a proposed treatment of criminals that would take them out of wider society (like a traditional prison) but without aiming to punish them.

Noun

funishment (countable and uncountable, plural funishments)

  1. (uncountable) A proposed treatment of criminals that would take them out of wider society (like a traditional prison) but without aiming to punish them.
    • I cannot elaborate in full detail here on the way things would unfold, but the crux is that hard determinism is seen to collapse upon itself: institutions of “funishment” will lose their ability to deter, and prove self-defeating.2013, Gregg D. Caruso, Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility, page 107
    • Funishment would resemble punishment in that criminals would be incarcerated apart from lawful society; and institutions of funishment would also need to be as secure as current prisons, to prevent criminals from escaping.2014, Derk Pereboom, Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, page 172
  2. A "punishment" administered for the enjoyment of the submissive, rather than as discipline.
    • […] when punishment turns into “funishment”, and the Minuscule starts “acting out” in order to have some desired masochistic play.2014, Raven Kaldera, Sabrina Popp, Unequal By Design: Counseling Power Dynamic Relationships

Forms of funishment

pluralfunishments

Origin of funishment

Blend of fun + punishment.

Questions about funishment

What does funishment mean?
Funishment means a proposed treatment of criminals that would take them out of wider society (like a traditional prison) but without aiming to punish them.
What part of speech is funishment?
Funishment is a noun.
How do you pronounce funishment?
Funishment is pronounced /ˈfʌnɪʃmənt/ (UK).
What is the plural of funishment?
The plural of funishment is funishments.

Words near funishment in the dictionary

  1. funingenoside
  2. funipendulous
  3. funipuncture
  4. funis
  5. Funish
  6. funishment
  7. funishments
  8. funisitis
  9. Funj
  10. funjee
  11. funji

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: funishment (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-funishment.wav.

Cite this entry: “funishment.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/funishment. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.