Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use punitive in a sentence

14 example sentences · adjective

Punitive means inflicting punishment; punishing. Example: “Beijing imposed punitive sanctions on Canada.”

Examples of punitive by meaning

adjectiveInflicting punishment; punishing.

  • Beijing imposed punitive sanctions on Canada.
  • The jury awarded $10,000 in punitive damages.
  • The council took punitive measures against poachers.

More sentences with punitive

  • The administration threatened to impose punitive tariffs of 25% on all steel imports in response to the trade dispute.From the entry punitive tariff
  • Black Pete and Sinterklaas also conspire to form a punitive team.2013 December 4, Arnon Grunberg, “Why the Dutch Love Black Pete”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company…. From the entry Sinterklaas
  • Consequently, the eventual decision is not likely to affect punitive damages in nonmaritime cases.2008 February 28, Linda Greenhouse, “Justices Take Up Battle Over Exxon Valdez”, in New York Times. From the entry nonmaritime
  • The fixed punitive sentence should become a practice of the past.1931 November 10, Louis Berman, quotee, “Survey Lays Crime to Gland Disorders: Dr. Berman Presents Evidence Obtained in 3-Year Study of…. From the entry recidive
  • Juries may not, however, use punitive damages to punish a defendant directly for harms that the defendant visited on nonparties.2007, Brian H. Bornstein, Richard L. Wiener, Robert Schopp, Civil Juries and Civil Justice: Psychological and Legal Perspectives. From the entry nonparty
  • Multiple punitive damages are likely to mispunish defendants.1993, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice, The Multiparty…. From the entry mispunish
  • Police reform advocate Robert Gangi called the plan “old wine in a new bottle” that relied “mainly on punitive law enforcement tactics”.2022 February 6, Lauren Gambino, quoting Robert Gangi, “Can Biden tackle rising crime without abandoning police reform promise?”, in The…. From the entry old wine in a new bottle
  • Just as a refugee resettles to escape hardship, a leftugee does so to flee the punitive financial environment created in their state by big government.2019 December 27, Jason Orestes, “'Leftugees': Red states must defend themselves from the blue-state exodus”, in Washington Examiner. From the entry leftugee
  • Angry parenting is punitive and ineffectual.1998, Terry M. Levy, Michael Orlans, Attachment, trauma, and healing. From the entry consequence
  • The first significant implication is that the category of the disorderly may not be pre-political, but may itself be constructed through lengthy processes of policing and punitive practice.2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, chapter 6, in Illusion of Order. From the entry prepolitical
  • The general strategy of the permissivists is to represent all opponents of their outlook as favoring a punitive approach to the treatment and prevention of narcotic addiction.1966, United States. Congress. House, Hearings, volume 8, page 249. From the entry permissivist

Meaning of punitive

  1. adjective Inflicting punishment; punishing.

Full definition of punitive

Questions about punitive in a sentence

How do you use punitive in a sentence?
Punitive is used as an adjective. For example: “Beijing imposed punitive sanctions on Canada.”
What is a short sentence with punitive?
“Angry parenting is punitive and ineffectual.”
What does punitive mean?
Punitive means inflicting punishment; punishing.

Source and license

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