Punishing
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Punishment.
"We may not be convinced that God is as involved in historical punishings as the prophet claims, and we may have a strong negative reaction to the claims made for how God acts[…]"
- 1 present participle and gerund of punish form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 That punishes physically and/or mentally; arduous, gruelling, demanding.
"Upon Amelia's return from the West Coast in October, George presented her with a punishing schedule of lectures and appointments to promote the new book and solidify her position as America's foremost woman aviator."
- 2 Debilitating, harsh. figuratively
"1999, Edward Gonzalez, Richard Nuccio, Rand Corporation. National Security Research Division, The Rand Forum on Cuba, Rand Corp Others argued that the worst of all outcomes after 40 years of a punishing embargo would be for the United States to adopt policies that might extend the life of a dictatorial regime."
- 1 characterized by effort to the point of exhaustion; especially physical effort wordnet
- 2 resulting in punishment wordnet
Example
More examples"What are you punishing them for?"
More for "punishing"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.