The quality or state of being penal; liability to punishment.

Obsolete form of penal.

A policy of imposing penalties.

One who or that which penalizes.

plural of penalizer

(law) A warning endorsed on a court order, notifying the recipient that he or she is liable to committal to prison for breach of the order.

A colonial territory used (mainly) for the detention and forced labor of deportees, typically where free labor is desperately scarce.

plural of penal colony

(theology) The theory of atonement which holds that Jesus died on the Cross in place of human sinners.

(Ireland, historical) A small set of rosary beads, consisting of a single decade of beads with a cross, attached to a ring.