Usually means: Intended to punish; harsh, penal.
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We found 29 dictionaries that define the word punitive:

General (26 matching dictionaries)
  1. punitive: Merriam-Webster.com
  2. punitive: Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
  3. punitive: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
  4. punitive: Collins English Dictionary
  5. punitive: Vocabulary.com
  6. Punitive, punitive: Wordnik
  7. punitive: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary
  8. punitive: Wiktionary
  9. punitive: Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.
  10. punitive: The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus
  11. punitive: Infoplease Dictionary
  12. punitive: Dictionary.com
  13. punitive: Online Etymology Dictionary
  14. punitive: Cambridge Essential American English Dictionary
  15. Punitive: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
  16. Punitive: Online Plain Text English Dictionary
  17. punitive: Webster's Revised Unabridged, 1913 Edition
  18. punitive: Rhymezone
  19. Punitive: AllWords.com Multi-Lingual Dictionary
  20. punitive: Webster's 1828 Dictionary
  21. punitive: Free Dictionary
  22. punitive: Mnemonic Dictionary
  23. punitive: Dictionary/thesaurus
  24. punitive: Wikimedia Commons US English Pronunciations

Business (2 matching dictionaries)
  1. Glossary of Legal Terms (No longer online)
  2. punitive: Legal dictionary

Medicine (1 matching dictionary)
  1. punitive: Medical dictionary

(Note: See punitively as well.)

Definitions from Wiktionary (
)
American English Definition British English Definition
adjective:  (law, military) Inflicting punishment; punishing.

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    black,     dark red,     crimson,     maroon,     burgundy, more...



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