Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use punish in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Punish means to cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer). Example: “If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person.”

Examples of punish by meaning

verbTo cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or...

  • If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person.
  • The law needs to punish this behaviour as a deterrent to others.2007, Matthew Weait, Intimacy and Responsibility: The Criminalisation of HIV Transmission, Routledge, →ISBN, page 80
  • The aim of Bastoy is not to punish or seek revenge, Nilsen said.2012 May 24, John D. Sutter, “Welcome to the world’s nicest prison”, in CNN

verbTo treat harshly and unfairly.

  • But each effort that Anna makes —and she has attempted many— meets with obstacles from a welfare bureaucracy that punishes single mothers for initiative and partial economic self-sufficiency.1994, Valerie Polakow, Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page...
  • The rider who comes back on his horse in mid-air over a fence is punishing his horse severely.2009, Gordon Wright, Learning to Ride, Hunt, and Show, Skyhorse Publishing Inc., →ISBN, page 44
  • But RDG is taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and punishing many millions of honest passengers by making tickets more restrictive.2026 March 18, Philip Haigh, “Tickets please: 2p per scan to offset fraudulent refunds?”, in RAIL, number 1057, page 48

verbTo consume a large quantity of.

  • A few moments later, we were all sitting around the veranda of the hunters' dining hall, punishing the gin, as usual.1970, Doc Greene, The Memory Collector, page 49

More sentences with punish

  • I’m set against the idea of smacking children to punish them.From the entry set
  • You committed terrible actions — to wit, murder and theft — and should be punished accordingly.From the entry wit
  • Our teacher was always very strict. If we didn't behave, we would get punished.From the entry strict
  • Good conduct will be rewarded and likewise poor conduct will be punished.From the entry conduct
  • He repeatedly violated the court order, and shall now be punished.From the entry repeatedly
  • He was punished for asking for answers implicitly during the exam.From the entry implicitly
  • Jim was a tyrant who threw his weight around when it came to punishing his students.From the entry throw one's weight around
  • My brother made the same mistake I did, but he didn't get punished: quelle surprise.From the entry quelle surprise
  • The mafiosi punished the informer by giving him a kneecapping.From the entry kneecapping
  • Whoever breaks the law will be punished.From the entry whoever
  • “Master, please don’t punish me!” he whimpered.From the entry whimper
  • It seems the boss tries to draw out these meetings for as long as possible just to punish us.From the entry draw out
  • The regiments were punished for their disobeyal of orders.From the entry disobeyal
  • Another punishing round of chemo is a necessary evil if Lisa is to have a fighting chance against the cancer.From the entry necessary evil
  • Anyone found deserting will be punished.From the entry desert
  • We must punish this apostate priest.From the entry apostate
  • They were punished as they merited.From the entry merit
  • The people concerned have been punished.From the entry concerned
  • See, he said, the high are punished as surely as the low.2023, Vajra Chandrasekera, The Saint of Bright Doors, Solaris (2024), pages 377-378. From the entry casteist
  • Even a moment’s hesitation could be punished by a swift but painful death beneath the bicorns’ hooves.2022, Hisaya Amagishi, translated by Nikolas Stirling, Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools, volume 3, J-Novel Club…. From the entry bicorn
  • Trump would finally unmask the cabal, punish its members for their crimes and restore America to greatness.2020 October 19, Kevin Roose, “What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory?”, in New York Times. From the entry The Storm
  • Little more than a generation ago, students were punished for speaking Halq’eméylem.2019 April 19, Brenna Owen, “B.C. students compete to preserve Halq’eméylem language”, in The Globe and Mail. From the entry Halq'eméylem
  • In the eyes of many Chinese, the boy was a heartless criminal who deserved to be punished.2018 December 14, Amy Qin, “12-Year-Old in China Kills His Mother, Then Returns to School, Igniting an Outcry”, in The New York Times…. From the entry Yuanjiang
  • They took off at a punishing speed, making London in less than half a day.2016, Tamara Gill, Only an Earl Will Do, Entangled: Select Historical. From the entry punishing
  • So you punish yourself, in subtle ways, every day, because you find yourself listening to this horsetwaddle.2015, Kenton Bartlett, “Change”, in The World Needs You (A Pep Talk), C.E. Press, →ISBN, page 387. From the entry horsetwaddle
  • Regardless of the punishing heat and physicality, restaurant cooking is a calling many Chinese chefs cannot deny.2013, Grace Young, Alan Richardson, The Breath of a Wok, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 100. From the entry punishing
  • But even though she red-handedly catches them, Jason doubts that she would punish Kayla.2013, Sky Nakayama, Gina Gabrielle, Phantasmagoria, →ISBN. From the entry red-handedly
  • In one-shot games, there is nothing the other can do to punish you for defecting.2012, Satoshi Kanazawa, The Intelligence Paradox, →ISBN. From the entry one-shot
  • When they want to punish someone, he is put down in a doghole.2011, Jack Vance, Ecce and Old Earth. From the entry doghole
  • Voters cannot punish corrupt officials who are termed out of office.2011, Justin Buchler, Hiring and Firing Public Officials: Rethinking the Purpose of Elections. From the entry term out
  • Pontius is rejecting and redeeming his manhood by punishing its essence.2007, Sean Brayton, “MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity”, in Journal of Gender Studies, volume…. From the entry remasculinize
  • If you did that in Rhodesia, you could be punished with many years in prison.2006, Tsitsi Dangarembga, The Book of Not, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 158. From the entry Rhodesia
  • Within some communities, vigilante justice was used to identify, punish, and kill political sell-outs, known as impimpis.2005, Ksenija Bilbija, The Art of Truth-telling about Authoritarian Rule, page 20. From the entry impimpi

Meaning of punish

  1. verb To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer).
  2. verb To treat harshly and unfairly.
  3. verb To handle or beat severely; to maul.

Full definition of punish

Questions about punish in a sentence

How do you use punish in a sentence?
Punish is used as a verb. For example: “If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person.”
What is a short sentence with punish?
“Anyone found deserting will be punished.”
What does punish mean?
Punish means to cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punish (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 punish in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/punish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.