See the full definition of punishment in the English Language Learners Dictionary These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “punitive.” The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. 05 2015. 11 2022 “Pu.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Pu. Retrieved 27 November 2022. We are sorry, but your access to the website has been temporarily disabled. Server resources for Acronym Finder are limited and we cannot grant unrestricted access to the database to all users. (2015, 05). PU legal-abbreviations.lawjournal.eu Retrieved 11 January 2022 from legal-abbreviations.lawjournal.eu/pu-public/ This article on PU was published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) license, which allows unrestricted use and duplication, provided that the author(s) of the PU entry and the Lawi platform are credited as the source of the PU entry. Please note that this CC BY license applies to certain PU textual content and that certain images and other textual or non-textual elements may be subject to special copyright regulations. For instructions on how to cite PU (with attribution under the CC BY license), see our “Cite this entry” recommendation below. Punishment is an important word in the law.

When you sue a person or company for wronging you in any way, you are usually asking for something of equal value to what was denied to you by the other party. But if the defendant did something particularly bad, you can also ask for punitive damages, money beyond the actual cost of the damage caused, to teach the defendant a lesson. Punitive damages are quite rare, but if awarded, they can be up to four times the amount of basic damages. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with * This is a summary of an upcoming entry in the Encyclopedia of Law. Please check later to get the full entry. French punitive, from medieval Latin punitivus, from Latin punitus, past participle of punish. To restore your access to the site, please enter the following characters exactly as they appear: Nglish: Translation of penalties for Spanish speakers.