telish
/ˈtɛlɪʃ/
telish verb: punish (an innocent person) for the sake of deterrence; subject (a person) to telishment.
Verb
telish (third-person singular simple present telishes, present participle telishing, simple past and past participle telished)
- Punish (an innocent person) for the sake of deterrence; subject (a person) to telishment.
- How is one to limit the risks involved in allowing such systematic deception? How is one to avoid giving anything short of complete discretion to the authorities to telish anyone they like?1955, John Rawls, “Two Concepts of Rules”, in The Philosophical Review, LXIV, № 1, page 12
Forms of telish
| third-person singular present | telishes |
|---|---|
| present participle | telishing |
| past participle | telished |
| past | telished |
Origin of telish
Coined by John Rawls in his 1955 paper “Two Concepts of Rules”. Probably a portmanteau of the Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “result”, “end”, loosely “the greater good”) and the English (pun)ish, after telishment.
Questions about telish
- What does telish mean?
- Telish means punish (an innocent person) for the sake of deterrence; subject (a person) to telishment.
- What part of speech is telish?
- Telish is a verb.
- How do you pronounce telish?
- Telish is pronounced /ˈtɛlɪʃ/.
- What is the past tense of telish?
- The past tense of telish is telished.
Words near telish in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: telish (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.
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Cite this entry: “telish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/telish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.