How to Use penitentiary in a Sentence

penitentiary

1 of 2 noun
  • The first year of your sentence in the state penitentiary is rough, to say the least.
    — Colin Nissan, The New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2021
  • The country was like a vast penitentiary, lit by high-wattage lamps.
    — Robert D. Kaplan, WSJ, 18 Mar. 2023
  • Teens would be brought to the penitentiary to meet with inmates and hear their stories.
    — Alex Mann, Baltimore Sun, 20 Jan. 2023
  • Razing of the old penitentiary is scheduled to start next week.
    — Tony Semerad, The Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Nov. 2022
  • Remaley spent almost two years in the state penitentiary, but that didn’t prompt him to change his ways.
    — oregonlive, 15 June 2021
  • Petty was 16 at the time and served nearly four years in a state penitentiary.
    — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 10 Sep. 2021
  • Now, the 24-year-old oversaw the flow of drugs into the penitentiary.
    — Stephen Humphries, Christian Science Monitor, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Less than a year after his release from the state penitentiary, Richard was back inside.
    — Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2021
  • Manchester gets caught, and is sentenced to 45 years in the state penitentiary.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 8 Oct. 2025
  • The penitentiary was built of brick and Wissahickon schist, a grayish black local stone.
    — Cantor Glenn Sherman, Sun Sentinel, 29 July 2022
  • Video released by the prison shows large chunks of debris flying off the roof with what appears to be billows of black storm clouds above the penitentiary.
    — Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today, 11 Aug. 2025
  • His poor health and age were the sole reasons that Russo died outside the walls of a federal penitentiary.
    — Kaylee Remington, cleveland, 2 Apr. 2022
  • Hurd plead guilty to the charges and served 10 years of his sentence at the Bastrop penitentiary in Texas.
    — Jaylon Thompson, USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2023
  • He is set to be executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — Fox News, 29 Sep. 2021
  • The fire broke out amid a chaotic scene inside the penitentiary in the western Colombian city of Tolua.
    — Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, 28 June 2022
  • Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, was put to death at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — CBS News, 22 Apr. 2022
  • Or the Texas penitentiary system hadn’t stolen five years of 03 Greedo’s prime?
    — Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • James was on his way to pick up an immigrant in the federal penitentiary who had finished a criminal sentence.
    — Lauren Villagran, USA Today, 13 Dec. 2025
  • At a federal penitentiary in Texas, prisoners are locked in their cells on weekends because there are not enough guards to watch them.
    — NBC News, 21 May 2021
  • Al Capone was transferred by train to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
    — Kori Rumore, Chicago Tribune, 4 May 2026
  • Just up the way, the old penitentiary building is famously open for tours and purportedly haunted.
    — Idaho Statesman, 6 Oct. 2025
  • William Speer, 49, is set to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — CBS News, 26 Oct. 2023
  • In 1982, he was arrested on drugs and weapons charges, and later spent months in a Texas state penitentiary.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2023
  • This was to block the view of any potential observer, including, it was said, the inmates whose cells looked northward from the penitentiary.
    — Caroline Lester, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2021
  • These events resulted in a 41 ½ year stint in the state’s penitentiary, and the dreams of yet another young man of color, deferred.
    — Okla Jones, Essence, 17 July 2023
  • Dallas time following a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — Dallas Morning News, 28 Jan. 2026
  • But he was most likely transferred there to help publicize the new penitentiary, nicknamed The Rock.
    — Don Sweeney, Sacbee.com, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — Juan A. Lozano and Michael Graczyk, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Tornado-like winds blew the roof off of a Nebraska penitentiary over the weekend, state officials said.
    — Natalie Neysa Alund, USA Today, 11 Aug. 2025
  • Martha Stewart knows how to keep the Christmas spirit alive, even while serving five months in a federal penitentiary.
    — Glenn Garner, PEOPLE.com, 20 Dec. 2021

penitentiary

2 of 2 adjective
  • Wright is at the prison to sample some penitentiary haute cuisine, and events take quite a turn.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Oct. 2021
  • The Friends group worked with the city to bring down penitentiary-style fencing and gates.
    — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Death row is located in a far corner of the penitentiary grounds.
    — oregonlive, 15 May 2020
  • The country has struggled to reduce the fighting in its penitentiary system for years.
    — Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2021
  • The release said the penitentiary staff will contact those who had already bought tickets to issue refunds.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 19 Aug. 2021
  • But their view was largely blocked by armed penitentiary police officers who stood behind the defendants at all times.
    — Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2020
  • Lighting by Michael Boll is penitentiary bright by day and crepuscular at night.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 28 Feb. 2018
  • In autumn 2016 there was the first match between two penitentiary rugby teams, in Bologna.
    — Alan Dymock, CNN, 18 Apr. 2018
  • Burke was sentenced to 17 years, and Hodges to 12 years, in the federal penitentiary system.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 17 Dec. 2021
  • Lavrov also said Whelan had threatened the penitentiary officers guarding him.
    — David Jackson, USA TODAY, 10 Dec. 2019
  • Overcrowded prisons and gang wars have caused an explosion of violence in its penitentiary system, former Ecuadoran officials said.
    — Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2021
  • And the underlying idea between both of these penitentiary systems, that people who had come into conflict with the law, who had been convicted of crimes, shouldn’t be subject to corporal punishment.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Aug. 2020
  • Angel Island State Park is much bigger, less expensive and often 10 degrees warmer than its penitentiary brother to the south.
    — Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 June 2021
  • Bruce Turnidge, 69, suffered various health problems that prompted officials to return him to the state penitentiary to be closer to medical care.
    — oregonlive, 14 June 2021
  • As far as the health, all individuals who are in prison, that is something that the administration of the specific prison or penitentiary establishment is responsible for.
    — NBC News, 14 June 2021
  • Violence in prisons has been escalating in recent years, but this was the worst penitentiary massacre in the South American country's history.
    — Harold Maass, The Week, 30 Sep. 2021
  • And yet, just like Little Dorrit, his imagination spent its liberty by continually flying back inside the penitentiary walls.
    — Laurence Scott, The New Yorker, 24 Dec. 2020
  • The penitentiary grounds were expanded in late 1875 by adding four city blocks and 10 acres west of the existing facility, which would include a 25-foot-high wall and a new cell block that could hold 232 inmates.
    — Arkansas Online, 22 Nov. 2025
  • Proponents of the moratorium on new prisons slammed the report’s findings, saying that a new women’s penitentiary undercuts efforts to reduce incarceration in favor of treatment and rehabilitation.
    — Alexander Thompson, BostonGlobe.com, 26 June 2022
  • Federal prisons house a relatively small segment of the US prison population, but still set the tone for the US government's ability to influence state and local penitentiary systems.
    — Tierney Sneed, CNN, 20 Oct. 2021
  • The Melekhovo facility has been the subject of multiple media investigations revealing brutality in the Russian penitentiary system and systematic abuse of prisoners by guards and other convicts.
    — Mary Ilyushina, Washington Post, 14 June 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'penitentiary.' 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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