How to use penal in a sentence
13 example sentences · adjective
Penal means of or relating to punishment. Example: “Australia was used as a penal colony by the United Kingdom in the 18th to 19th century.”
Examples of penal by meaning
adjectiveSubject to punishment; punishable.
- a penal offence
adjectiveServing as a place of punishment.
- a penal colony
adjectiveExorbitant.
- a penal rate of interest
More sentences with penal
- Australia was used as a penal colony by the United Kingdom in the 18th to 19th century.From the entry penal colony
- A Prussian proposal for a harsh penal code made male homosexuality an even more serious crime.2004 June 10, Leslie Feinberg, “The love that dared to speak its name”, in Workers World. From the entry homosexuality
- There was no High Court as at present constituted, and no penal or suchlike codes.1909, E. J. Churcher, Some Reminiscences of Three-quarters of a Century in India, page 19. From the entry ma bap
- In some cases, as in the Young case, this penal policy would discourage individuals from appropriate and encourageable conduct.2004, Hisham M. Ramadan, Reconstructing Jury Instructions in Homicide Offenses, Rethinking Homicide Law, University Press of America…. From the entry encourageable
- Scientific, moral, and penal laws are formally universal, sentential propositions.2000, Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, page 349. From the entry sentential
- When our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning, but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing.2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, page 26. From the entry warehouse
- When defendant committed the contempts of court at issue here, he was not at the time incarcerated in a penal or reformatory institution and he was not an escapee.2012 December 18, “People v. Veilleux”, in Supreme Court of Michigan, retrieved 16 Apr 2014. From the entry contempt of court
- As a social movement committed to the abolition of the prison or even the entire penal system, abolitionism originated in campaigns for prisoners' rights and penal reform.1991, Willem de Haan, "Abolitionism and Crime Control", in Kevin Martin Stenson, David Cowell, The Politics of Crime Control, SAGE, page 203. From the entry abolitionism
- Balfour, who had sought refuge in Argentina, was extradited, and sentenced to a long term of penal servitude at Parkhurst Prison in the Isle of Wight.1948 July and August, K. Westcott Jones, “The Isle of Wight Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 216. From the entry servitude
- Tolokonnikova not only tried to adjust to life in the penal colony but she even tried to heed the criticism levied at her by colony representatives during a parole hearing.2013 September 23, Masha Gessen, “Life in a Russian Prison”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Sep 2013. From the entry heed
Meaning of penal
- adjective Of or relating to punishment.
- adjective Subject to punishment; punishable.
- adjective Serving as a place of punishment.
Questions about penal in a sentence
- How do you use penal in a sentence?
- Penal is used as an adjective. For example: “Australia was used as a penal colony by the United Kingdom in the 18th to 19th century.”
- What is a short sentence with penal?
- “a penal colony”
- What does penal mean?
- Penal means of or relating to punishment.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: penal (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use penal in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/penal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.