Word.ws English Dictionary

penalty box

penalty box noun: an enclosed bench where a player must remain for timed period (a penalty) that is assessed after an infraction.

Noun

penalty box (plural penalty boxes)

  1. An enclosed bench where a player must remain for timed period (a penalty) that is assessed after an infraction.
    • Both players got to cool their heels for five minutes in their respective penalty boxes after the fight.
  2. The penalty area.
    • At times, Swindon's penalty box resembled a pinball machine.2000 March 12, Stuart Barnes, “Swindon stunner for Curbishley”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    sin bin
  3. (figuratively, idiomatic) A temporary punishment, or, metaphorically, a similar setback (e.g., loss of control, embarrassment, etc.).
    • A visit to the penalty box occurs when the salesman has relinquished control of the sales call by immediately answering the customer's question.2003, Tim Breithaupt, 10 Steps to Sales Success: The Proven System That Can Shorten the Selling Cycle, Double Your Close Ratio, →ISBN, page 170
    • What can land you in this metaphorical holding cell, the penalty box of Catholicism?2003, John Portmann, Sex and heaven: Catholics in bed and at prayer, →ISBN, page 155

Synonyms of penalty box

Forms of penalty box

pluralpenalty boxes

Questions about penalty box

What does penalty box mean?
Penalty box means an enclosed bench where a player must remain for timed period (a penalty) that is assessed after an infraction.
What part of speech is penalty box?
Penalty box is a noun.
What is the plural of penalty box?
The plural of penalty box is penalty boxes.

Words near penalty box in the dictionary

  1. penalty
  2. penalty arc
  3. penalty arcs
  4. penalty area
  5. penalty areas
  6. penalty box
  7. penalty boxes
  8. penalty card
  9. penalty cards
  10. penalty copy
  11. penalty corner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penalty box (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-penalty box.ogg.

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