sentence
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehntuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛntəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
grammar
A grammatically complete series of words consisting of a subject and predicate, even if one or the other is implied. In modern writing, when using e.g. the Latin, Greek or Cyrillic alphabets, typically beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop or other punctuation.
criminal law
A final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed
verb
transitive
To declare a sentence on a convicted person; to condemn to punishment.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
Used this way, sentence is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sentence
- “He always spoke in grammatical sentences.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The distribution of stresses within a sentence.
The grammatical arrangement of words in sentences.
A sentence composed of at least two coordinate independent clauses.
A sentence (in the indicative mood) that makes a declaration.
A sentence (in the indicative mood) that makes a declaration.
A sentence of inquiry that asks for a reply.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Formal expression containing variables.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- imprisonmentnoun
- offendernoun
- defendantnoun
- prisonnoun
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.