How to Use penal in a Sentence

penal

adjective
  • Australia was once a penal colony.
  • In August, she was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony.
    — Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY, 21 Dec. 2022
  • Ripley gets stranded on a planet with an all-male penal colony and not much else.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 15 May 2017
  • The colony’s penal function brought in large sums from the British treasury.
    — Britannica Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Short sentences in Russia are served in jails while most longer terms are served in penal colonies.
    — Andrew E. Kramer, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Feb. 2021
  • Colorado was the first of eight states to repeal its penal exception clause.
    — Julia Bowling, The Conversation, 29 May 2026
  • At least some Ukrainians were taken to a former penal colony.
    — Compiled Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, Arkansas Online, 22 May 2022
  • The bunkers are penal, composed of a dark, heavy dirt and surrounded by fescue.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Oct. 2019
  • In fact, two of the young women were sentenced to one of Russia’s penal colonies.
    — Evgeny Lebedev, Vogue, 30 Aug. 2022
  • He has been sentenced to two-plus years in prison and sent to a penal colony outside of Moscow.
    — Deirdre Shesgreen, USA TODAY, 16 June 2021
  • She was convicted and sentenced in August to serve nine years in a penal colony.
    — Ann M. Simmons, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2022
  • The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned.
    — Mario Nicolais, The Denver Post, 18 May 2017
  • Griner spent months in a penal colony after being sentenced to 9½ years in prison on minor drug charges.
    — Joanna Slater, Washington Post, 16 Dec. 2022
  • But a year later Reed was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony.
    — Ivan Pereira, ABC News, 5 Apr. 2022
  • One year later, Reed was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony.
    — Ivan Pereira, ABC News, 27 Apr. 2022
  • He was awarded the prize while serving a more than two-year sentence in a Russian penal colony.
    — New York Times, 20 Oct. 2021
  • Hinds County has buried hundreds of people in pauper's graves near a penal farm.
    — Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 3 Feb. 2024
  • Alyokhina and her friend Nadya Tolokonnikova spent two years in penal colonies.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 16 Dec. 2022
  • By then, he’d already been buried in a pauper’s grave on the grounds of the Hinds County penal farm.
    — Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 29 Nov. 2023
  • On the other side of the barbed wire, the Texas towns that housed the new penal facilities prospered.
    — Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2020
  • Vick is charged with abuse of residents of penal facilities.
    — Kelli Arseneau, jsonline.com, 12 Feb. 2026
  • Just last month, the athlete was transferred to one of the harshest types of Russian penal colonies for women.
    — Jodi Guglielmi, Rolling Stone, 8 Dec. 2022
  • Brittney Griner has started her nine-year prison sentence at a penal colony in Mordovia.
    — Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Sydney, Australia Sydney has come a long way since its days as a British penal colony.
    — Teen Vogue, 25 Mar. 2019
  • Griner, 31, was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony, and experts say such places are as bad as the term sounds.
    — Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 4 Aug. 2022
  • The Gray Wastes differ in both size and mission from the penal systems of earlier eras.
    — Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, 28 Nov. 2016
  • The company mines in one of the world’s most northern cities, Norilsk—a former penal colony.
    — Alistair MacDonald, WSJ, 6 Mar. 2022
  • Three young women are sent to the fledgling British penal colony of Australia in the 1840s.
    — Star Tribune, 15 Sep. 2020
  • Rybakov was sentenced to six years in a penal colony above the Arctic Circle and Volkov to seven years.
    — Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2022
  • She has been transferred to a penal colony roughly 300 miles southeast of Moscow, per Reuters.
    — Justin Klawans, The Week, 18 Nov. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'penal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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