How to Use penitentiary in a Sentence

penitentiary

1 of 2 noun
Definition of penitentiarynext
Synonyms for penitentiarynext
  • The first year of your sentence in the state penitentiary is rough, to say the least.
    — Colin Nissan, The New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2021
  • And Roberts had been sent to a penitentiary full of Crips.
    — Kevin O’Kelly, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 July 2021
  • Hurd plead guilty to the charges and served 10 years of his sentence at the Bastrop penitentiary in Texas.
    — Jaylon Thompson, USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2023
  • Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, was put to death at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — CBS News, 22 Apr. 2022
  • Teens would be brought to the penitentiary to meet with inmates and hear their stories.
    — Alex Mann, Baltimore Sun, 20 Jan. 2023
  • The country was like a vast penitentiary, lit by high-wattage lamps.
    — Robert D. Kaplan, WSJ, 18 Mar. 2023
  • Petty was 16 at the time and served nearly four years in a state penitentiary.
    — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 10 Sep. 2021
  • In the background is a walled-in courtyard: a penitentiary.
    — Vulture, 3 Oct. 2023
  • The fire broke out amid a chaotic scene inside the penitentiary in the western Colombian city of Tolua.
    — Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, 28 June 2022
  • Razing of the old penitentiary is scheduled to start next week.
    — Tony Semerad, The Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Nov. 2022
  • In 1982, he was arrested on drugs and weapons charges, and later spent months in a Texas state penitentiary.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2023
  • William Speer, 49, is set to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — CBS News, 26 Oct. 2023
  • Remaley spent almost two years in the state penitentiary, but that didn’t prompt him to change his ways.
    — oregonlive, 15 June 2021
  • Or the Texas penitentiary system hadn’t stolen five years of 03 Greedo’s prime?
    — Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • His poor health and age were the sole reasons that Russo died outside the walls of a federal penitentiary.
    — Kaylee Remington, cleveland, 2 Apr. 2022
  • Less than a year after his release from the state penitentiary, Richard was back inside.
    — Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2021
  • These events resulted in a 41 ½ year stint in the state’s penitentiary, and the dreams of yet another young man of color, deferred.
    — Okla Jones, Essence, 17 July 2023
  • Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — Juan A. Lozano and Michael Graczyk, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2023
  • The penitentiary was built of brick and Wissahickon schist, a grayish black local stone.
    — Cantor Glenn Sherman, Sun Sentinel, 29 July 2022
  • Now 71, Manning is on track to be paroled in July from a federal penitentiary in Phoenix.
    — Gabriel San Román, Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 2023
  • In the Netflix film, Hemsworth plays scientist Steve Abnesti, who tests drugs on convicts at a remote, state-of-the-art penitentiary.
    — Clark Collis, EW.com, 17 May 2022
  • All id all the time, Democrats and the Trump-obsessed are gleeful at the prospect that the bane of their existence will be convicted and sentenced to a federal penitentiary.
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 9 Dec. 2023
  • He was sentenced to death a year later and imprisoned on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.
    — Edmund H. Mahony, courant.com, 21 Oct. 2021
  • His mother took Marks in after he was released from Waupun penitentiary in 1955.
    — Longreads, Longreads, 2 Nov. 2021
  • In a penitentiary with one of the U.S.’s largest coronavirus outbreaks, prison terms become death sentences.
    — The New Yorker, 8 May 2021
  • He is set to be executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
    — Fox News, 29 Sep. 2021
  • This was to block the view of any potential observer, including, it was said, the inmates whose cells looked northward from the penitentiary.
    — Caroline Lester, Harper's Magazine, 27 Apr. 2021
  • The penitentiary, located about 50 miles north of Baton Rouge, holds adults in a separate area.
    — María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post, 21 July 2023
  • At a federal penitentiary in Texas, prisoners are locked in their cells on weekends because there are not enough guards to watch them.
    — NBC News, 21 May 2021
  • The penitentiary, which suffers from a severe lack of food, propane fuel and drinking water, is also wrestling with a feet-deep infestation of sewage and garbage.
    — Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 25 Jan. 2024
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penitentiary

2 of 2 adjective
  • The Friends group worked with the city to bring down penitentiary-style fencing and gates.
    — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Wright is at the prison to sample some penitentiary haute cuisine, and events take quite a turn.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Death row is located in a far corner of the penitentiary grounds.
    — oregonlive, 15 May 2020
  • Burke was sentenced to 17 years, and Hodges to 12 years, in the federal penitentiary system.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 17 Dec. 2021
  • In autumn 2016 there was the first match between two penitentiary rugby teams, in Bologna.
    — Alan Dymock, CNN, 18 Apr. 2018
  • The country has struggled to reduce the fighting in its penitentiary system for years.
    — Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2021
  • The release said the penitentiary staff will contact those who had already bought tickets to issue refunds.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 19 Aug. 2021
  • The penitentiary service says that while recuperating in Germany last year, Mr. Navalny failed to report to it twice a month, as required by the court.
    — New York Times, 17 Jan. 2021
  • Lighting by Michael Boll is penitentiary bright by day and crepuscular at night.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 28 Feb. 2018
  • But their view was largely blocked by armed penitentiary police officers who stood behind the defendants at all times.
    — Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2020
  • Angel Island State Park is much bigger, less expensive and often 10 degrees warmer than its penitentiary brother to the south.
    — Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 June 2021
  • Bruce Turnidge, 69, suffered various health problems that prompted officials to return him to the state penitentiary to be closer to medical care.
    — oregonlive, 14 June 2021
  • And the underlying idea between both of these penitentiary systems, that people who had come into conflict with the law, who had been convicted of crimes, shouldn’t be subject to corporal punishment.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Aug. 2020
  • Violence in prisons has been escalating in recent years, but this was the worst penitentiary massacre in the South American country's history.
    — Harold Maass, The Week, 30 Sep. 2021
  • Lavrov also said Whelan had threatened the penitentiary officers guarding him.
    — David Jackson, USA TODAY, 10 Dec. 2019
  • As far as the health, all individuals who are in prison, that is something that the administration of the specific prison or penitentiary establishment is responsible for.
    — NBC News, 14 June 2021
  • Federal prisons house a relatively small segment of the US prison population, but still set the tone for the US government's ability to influence state and local penitentiary systems.
    — Tierney Sneed, CNN, 20 Oct. 2021
  • Overcrowded prisons and gang wars have caused an explosion of violence in its penitentiary system, former Ecuadoran officials said.
    — Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2021
  • And yet, just like Little Dorrit, his imagination spent its liberty by continually flying back inside the penitentiary walls.
    — Laurence Scott, The New Yorker, 24 Dec. 2020
  • Coleman is a sprawling complex of penitentiary units with five sections: two high-security institutions, a low and medium-security facility and a camp for female inmates.
    — Lisa Maria Garza, orlandosentinel.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The Melekhovo facility has been the subject of multiple media investigations revealing brutality in the Russian penitentiary system and systematic abuse of prisoners by guards and other convicts.
    — Mary Ilyushina, Washington Post, 14 June 2022
  • The Friends group worked with the city to bring down penitentiary-style fencing and gates.
    — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 28 Sep. 2020
  • Wright is at the prison to sample some penitentiary haute cuisine, and events take quite a turn.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Death row is located in a far corner of the penitentiary grounds.
    — oregonlive, 15 May 2020
  • Burke was sentenced to 17 years, and Hodges to 12 years, in the federal penitentiary system.
    — Carol Robinson | [email protected], al, 17 Dec. 2021
  • In autumn 2016 there was the first match between two penitentiary rugby teams, in Bologna.
    — Alan Dymock, CNN, 18 Apr. 2018
  • The country has struggled to reduce the fighting in its penitentiary system for years.
    — Washington Post, 29 Sep. 2021
  • The release said the penitentiary staff will contact those who had already bought tickets to issue refunds.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 19 Aug. 2021
  • The penitentiary service says that while recuperating in Germany last year, Mr. Navalny failed to report to it twice a month, as required by the court.
    — New York Times, 17 Jan. 2021
  • Lighting by Michael Boll is penitentiary bright by day and crepuscular at night.
    — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 28 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'penitentiary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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