capital punishment
48
4.2
- noun
- /ˈkæpɪtl ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/
- NSFW
:
pena de muerte
- The Court ruled that the way in which capital punishment statutes were administered was unconstitutional.
- capital punishment for crimes
- capital punishment laws
- oppose capital punishment
You make this make certain decisions should should you like capital punishment, should you take a person's life or not to punish them for a certain crime?
- You make this make certain decisions should should you like capital punishment, should you take a person's life or not to punish them for a certain crime?
- Like with abolishing capital punishment, prison abolition is often argued for as part of a wider transformation of society.
Examples
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Two hundred crimes once subject to capital punishment had been swept from England's statute book.
Academic text (1997) -
Between 1790 and 1870, British legislation abolished the most vicious methods of capital punishment hitherto authorized under English law.
Academic text (2004) -
"Do you believe in capital punishment for murder?"
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In the United States, capital punishment was adopted from British common law.
Academic text (2004) -
To think critically about capital punishment, students need specific background knowledge.
Academic text (2002) -
A discussion of capital punishment can be the occasion for critical thinking.
Academic text (2002) -
What is the right answer to the question of the legitimacy of capital punishment?
Academic text (2000) -
Did you know that Delaware is one of the last states to use hanging as a form of capital punishment?
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Note recent measures taken by a number of participating states towards the abolition of capital punishment.
Academic text (1990) -
In 2019, the state enacted a law to abolish capital punishment in response to public outcry.
Synonyms
361
6.5
Putting a person to death as punishment for a crime
305
4.1
A legal punishment in which a person is killed for a very serious crime
56
5.2
An official punishment where a court orders someone to be put to death for a crime
Surface Forms
Morphology
The word 'punishment' makes it clear this is a type of penalty, but the modifier 'capital' does not transparently signal 'death' to an average B1 learner (it more commonly means 'important' or refers to a city). Because many languages use a cognate (e.g. Spanish pena capital, French peine capitale), some learners may infer the death-penalty sense, but the specific meaning is not directly predictable from the constituents for most learners.
Etymology
Capital punishment comes from an old word for 'head'. Long ago, a capital crime was one so serious that the punishment could be to lose your head, so capital punishment came to mean 'legal killing' as a punishment for a crime.