sentence
n. countablen. a group of words that starts with a capital letter and ends with a period. It usually tells a complete thought or idea.
n. a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command. In legal contexts, refers to the punishment assigned to a defendant found guilty by a court.
Please write a short sentence about your family.
The teacher asked the students to identify the subject and the verb in every sentence of the paragraph.
While the defendant hoped for leniency, the judge handed down a maximum sentence to reflect the severity of the crime and deter future offenders.
Borrowed from Middle French sentence, from Latin sententia (“way of thinking, opinion, sentiment”), from sentiēns, present participle of sentiō (“to feel, think”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to feel”).
In its grammatical sense, it refers to a linguistic unit; in its legal sense, it functions as a synonym for a judicial penalty.