i Register
In some senses, punish is marked as figuratively, colloquial. Watch for register when choosing this word.
verb
To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teach
If a prince violates the law, then he must be punished like an ordinary person.
It was not from the want of proper laws that dangerous principles had been disseminated, and had assumed a threatening aspect, but because those laws had not been employed by the executive power to remedy the evil, and to punish the offenders.
To treat harshly and unfairly.
But each effort that Anna makes —and she has attempted many— meets with obstacles from a welfare bureaucracy that punishes single mothers for initiative and partial economic self-sufficiency.
Homer, moreover, gives the impression that the Sun punished Odysseus's men; but we are later told that the Sun cannot punish individual men […]
To handle or beat severely; to maul.
To consume a large quantity of.
A few moments later, we were all sitting around the veranda of the hunters' dining hall, punishing the gin, as usual.