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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Official penalty 🚫 To punish officially ✅ To approve ✅ Official approval 📜 To confirm formally 👥 Rule enforcement
to sanction

to sanction

44 6.3
To put official penalties on a country, group, or person
  • verb
  • /ˈsæŋkʃən/
  • Formal
translation icon : sancionar
  • The government decided to sanction the country's trade for its human rights violations.
  • sanction a company
  • courts sanction
  • authority to sanction

I don't know if they even had a flag or they were sanctioned or whatever.

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Examples

  • Age-inappropriate behavior and attitudes were more strictly sanctioned for women who deviated than for men.

    Academic text (1990)

  • And, and how many countries have the US sanctioned along the way and cut off their access to SWIFT?

  • If not, is it fair to sanction one and not the other?

    Academic text (1998)

  • Friend, I cannot sanction this violence and destruction.

    Zardoz (1974)

  • And we're sanctioned by the United Nations

    Mega Piranha (2010)

  • Whatever happens next, I want you to know I did not sanction that cowardly act against your father.

    Forsaken (2015)

  • Pyongyang said that any threat to sanction North Korea was an act of war.

    Academic text (1999)

  • And then it is true that we LED a worldwide effort to impose sanctions on Russia.

  • What we're about to do won't be sanctioned.

    Holy Terror (2017)

  • In response to the invasion, many nations chose to sanction the aggressor to deter further attacks.

Synonyms

to penalize
vsto sanction
  • US
60 5.5

Punish someone or make them suffer a loss for breaking a rule

is an official measure used by authorities, often against states or organizations
to impose a fine
vsto sanction
  • Formal
1 3.8

Officially order someone to pay money as punishment for breaking a rule

is broader than just payment and can include nonfinancial or political restrictions

Antonyms

to lift
255 4.2

To officially end a rule or restriction

Compounds

pragmatic sanction
  • Formal
9.9

An official order by a king or emperor that becomes a basic law of the country

How Severe

to blockade
9 6.0
to embargo
  • Formal
1 7.0
to sanction
  • Formal
44 6.3
to penalize
  • US
60 5.5
to warn
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

sanction infinitive
sanctioned past
sanctioned past participle
sanctioning present participle
sanctions third person singular

Etymology

Sanction (verb meaning to punish) comes from the old Latin sancire, 'to make sacred', and because sacred laws were strictly enforced, the word came to mean 'to punish or restrict' those who break rules. So, to sanction can mean to impose an official penalty.