English Explanatory Dictionary

sentence

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The decision or judgement of a jury or court; a verdict.
  2. The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
  3. A punishment imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
  4. A saying, especially from a great person; a maxim, an apophthegm.
  5. 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.
  6. A formula with no free variables.
  7. Any of the set of strings that can be generated by a given formal grammar.
  8. Sense; meaning; significance.
  9. One's opinion; manner of thinking.
  10. A pronounced opinion or judgment on a given question.
verb
  1. To declare a sentence on a convicted person; to condemn to punishment.
  2. To decree, announce, or pass as a sentence.
  3. To utter sententiously.

Pronunciation

/ˈsɛn.təns/ [ˈsɛntn̩(t)s] [ˈsɛnʔn̩(t)s] en-us-sentence.ogg

Word forms

sentence sentences sentencing sentenced

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French sentence, from Latin sententia (“way of thinking, opinion, sentiment”), from sentiēns, present participle of sentiō (“to feel, think”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to feel”).

Synonyms

verdict conviction clause adjudge condemn doom convict damn deem judge sentence pass sentence

Related words

sentential

Derived words

circle sentence cleft sentence composite sentence Concord sentence death sentence donkey sentence foresentence fused sentence garden-path sentence garden path sentence hypersentence incomplete sentence intersentence intrasentence jail sentence kernel sentence life sentence mandatory sentence midsentence minor sentence multisentence nonsentence number sentence periodic sentence presentence prison sentence pro-sentence pseudosentence run-on sentence sentegraph sentenceable sentence adverb sentence case sentence connective sentence element sentence-final particle sentence fragment sentenceful sentencehood sentencelike sentence mix sentenceness sentencewise sentoid slifting subsentence suspended sentence topic sentence Wenker sentence oversentence resentence sentencer unsentenced
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