Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Penal

Pe′nal (pē′nal), a. [L. poenalis, fr. poena punishment: cf. F. pénal. See Pain.] Of or pertaining to punishment, to penalties, or to crimes and offenses; pertaining to criminal jurisprudence: as: (a) Enacting or threatening punishment; as, a penal statue; the penal code. (b) Incurring punishment; subject to a penalty; as, a penalact of offense. (c) Inflicted as punishment; used as a means of punishment; as, a penal colony or settlement. "Adamantine chains and penal fire." Milton.

Penal code (Law), a code of laws concerning crimes and offenses and their punishment. — Penal laws, Penal statutes (Law), laws prohibited certain acts, and imposing penalties for committing them. — Penal servitude, imprisonment with hard labor, in a prison, in lieu of transportation. [Great Brit.] — Penal suit, Penal action (Law), a suit for penalties.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.