penal colony
7
8.2
- noun
- /ˈpiːnəl ˈkɒləni/
:
colonia penal
- But that was way off in the South Seas, on the way to the penal colonies in Australia.
So justice is not something simple, and nor is its opposite injustice in this story in the penal colony.
- So justice is not something simple, and nor is its opposite injustice in this story in the penal colony.
Examples
-
What if I say something about Australia being England's old penal colony?
-
I read the one about the penal colony.
Fiction book (1991) -
- What is this, a penal colony?
-
That one story, for instance, about the penal colony.
-
When my crime became known in the penal colony, I was told that I no longer had the right to be a thief.
Academic text (1993) -
Australia is a penal colony, isn't it?
Fiction book (1994) -
Australia became a penal colony with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
Academic text (1990) -
In the end, though, the continent was designated as a penal colony, with the first prisoners transported a few years later.
Fiction book (2001) -
Well, Australia was a penal colony, and real Australian aristocrats have some convicts in their ancestry, so maybe that's the connection.
-
Australia became a penal colony with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A building where people are kept as punishment or while waiting for trial
∞
1.0
A building where people are kept as punishment or while waiting for their trial
26
5.3
A camp where guards keep people against their will, often during war
10
4.2
A building like a prison where people are kept as punishment and given training
2
4.9
A place where people who broke the law are kept as punishment or while they wait for trial
1
6.3
A place like a prison where people are kept as punishment for crimes
1
6.0
A building that holds people as punishment for crimes to protect the public
How Isolated
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'penal' means relating to punishment and 'colony' means a settlement or territory, so 'penal colony' naturally denotes a settlement used to punish/exile criminals. This adjective+noun combination follows a regular productive pattern and has clear cross‑linguistic equivalents, so a B1 learner who knows both words would likely infer the meaning.
Etymology
Penal colony comes from two words: penal meaning 'punishment' and colony meaning 'a distant settlement'. In the past, countries sent prisoners to faraway islands or settlements where escape was very hard, so penal colony came to mean 'a place used to imprison and exile people'.