Word.ws English Dictionary

penalty unit

penalty unit noun: an amount of money, used as a basis of a penalty fine, which can be adjusted by the government without the need to pass new legislation.

Noun

penalty unit (plural penalty units)

  1. (Australia, criminal law) An amount of money, used as a basis of a penalty fine, which can be adjusted by the government without the need to pass new legislation.
    • In 1987 the Penalty Units and Other Penalties Act introduced a new scheme for financial penalties. The penalty provisions in a number of Acts containing commonly occurring offences were amended to specify the fine in penalty units rather than a specific sum. The value of a penalty unit is specified...2002, Kate Warner, Sentencing in Tasmania, page 124
    • Usually an Act sets a maximum fine or penalty for a particular offence, measured in penalty units, which have a monetary equivalent. For example, under Section 46(2) of the Road Safety Act 1986, ‘a person who fails to stop the vehicle when requested or signalled is guilty of an offence. Penalty...2008, Jules Aldous, Making and Breaking the Law: VCE Units 3 and 4, page 311

Examples of penalty unit in a sentence

  • In 1987 the Penalty Units and Other Penalties Act introduced a new scheme for financial penalties.2002, Kate Warner, Sentencing in Tasmania, page 124:
  • Usually an Act sets a maximum fine or penalty for a particular offence, measured in penalty units, which have a monetary equivalent.2008, Jules Aldous, Making and Breaking the Law: VCE Units 3 and 4, page 311:
  • Where an individual breaches this provision, the person may be liable to a fine of 50 penalty units ($5,000).2010, CCH Australia Limited, Australian Master Human Resources Guide 2010, page 1144:

Forms of penalty unit

pluralpenalty units

Questions about penalty unit

What does penalty unit mean?
Penalty unit means an amount of money, used as a basis of a penalty fine, which can be adjusted by the government without the need to pass new legislation.
How do you use penalty unit in a sentence?
In 1987 the Penalty Units and Other Penalties Act introduced a new scheme for financial penalties.
What part of speech is penalty unit?
Penalty unit is a noun.
What is the plural of penalty unit?
The plural of penalty unit is penalty units.

Words near penalty unit in the dictionary

  1. penalty throws
  2. penalty tries
  3. penalty try
  4. penalty turn
  5. penalty turns
  6. penalty unit
  7. penalty units
  8. Penalver
  9. Penalvers
  10. Penal–Debe
  11. penam

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penalty unit (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 unit.ogg.

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