Adjacent Words

Punishing definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PUN'ISHING, ppr. Afflicting with pain, penalty or suffering of any kind, as the retribution of a crime or offense.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: resulting in punishment; "the king imposed a punishing tax"
2: characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort; "worked their arduous way up the mining valley"; "a grueling campaign"; "hard labor"; "heavy work"; "heavy going"; "spent many laborious hours on the project"; "set a punishing pace" [syn: arduous, backbreaking, grueling, gruelling, hard, heavy, laborious, operose, punishing, toilsome]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Punish Pun"ish, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Punished; p. pr. & vb. n. Punishing.] [OE. punischen, F. punir, from L. punire, punitum, akin to poena punishment, penalty. See Pain, and -ish.] 1. To impose a penalty upon; to afflict with pain, loss, or suffering for a crime or fault, either with or without a view to the offender's amendment; to cause to suffer in retribution; to chasten; as, to punish traitors with death; a father punishes his child for willful disobedience. A greater power Now ruled him, punished in the shape he sinned. --Milton. 2. To inflict a penalty for (an offense) upon the offender; to repay, as a fault, crime, etc., with pain or loss; as, to punish murder or treason with death. 3. To injure, as by beating; to pommel. [Low] Syn: To chastise; castigate; scourge; whip; lash; correct; discipline. See Chasten.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

A punishing schedule, activity, or experience requires a lot of physical effort and makes you very tired or weak. He claimed his punishing work schedule had made him resort to taking the drug... ADJ: usu ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

Herculean, arduous, backbreaking, burdensome, castigatory, chastening, chastising, corrective, crushing, demanding, disciplinary, draining, effortful, exhausting, fatiguesome, fatiguing, forced, grueling, hard, hard-earned, hard-fought, heavy, hefty, inflictive, killing, labored, laborious, onerous, operose, oppressive, painful, penal, penological, punitive, punitory, retributive, strained, straining, strenuous, stressful, taxing, tiresome, tiring, toilsome, torturous, tough, troublesome, trying, uphill, weariful, wearing, wearisome, wearying