From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpenalpe‧nal /ˈpiːnl/ adjective 1 [only before noun]SCJ relating to the legal punishment of criminals, especially in prisons the penal systempenal colony/settlement (=a special area of land where prisoners are kept)2 → penal servitude3 British English very severe penal rates of interest
Examples from the Corpus
penal• The possibility of penal cancellation charges in the public domain is a rumour.• a penal colony• This is not to say that economic imperatives play no part in penal developments.• Children who never became penal inmates surely deserve equal consideration.• It has been very difficult too for women to reach the higher levels of penal policy-making and administration.• These mainly constructive changes in penal policy were not matched by changes within the prison system.• If the primary object of penal reformers is not to abolish prisons it is certainly to secure reductions in prison population.• Where deviance has a categorical, unproblematic quality, a penal response is triggered.• Historical materialism can also be used to explain the history of penal thought sketched in the previous chapter.penal colony/settlement• You play Ripley, who has to despatch hordes of alien-infested humans from an underground penal colony.• He was appointed superintendent of the penal colony on Norfolk Island in 1840.• Lines scoured on flesh in the penal settlement, or detention beyond the Styx.• Leper colonies are only one entry in this classification of special communities; certain penal colonies would be another.Origin penal (1400-1500) French pénal, from Latin poenalis, from poena “punishment” 