penalty

plural penalties · alternative archaic pœnalty

1. A legal sentence.

   The penalty for his crime was to do hard labor.

2. A punishment for violating rules of procedure.

   Was it so irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as still to peal out the curfew bell, which at nine o'clock at night had clamorously warned all negroes, slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be abroad after that hour, under penalty of imprisonment or whipping?

   1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: punishment, punition, sentence

3. businessA payment forfeited for an early withdrawal from an account or an investment.
4. In sports:
   1. ball gamesA direct free kick from the penalty spot, taken after a defensive foul in the penalty box; a penalty kick.
   2. hobbiesA punishment for an infraction of the rules, often in the form of being removed from play for a specified amount of time.

      A penalty was called when he tripped up his opponent.

5. A disadvantageous consequence of a previous event.

   "But you, my noble, my generous girl!" exclaimed Lord Avonleigh, "I dare not let you pay the penalty of my former folly."

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 126