Main Entry: ¹sen·tence

Pronunciation: \ˈsen-t^ən(t)s, -t^ənz\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin sententia feeling, opinion, from *sentent-, *sentens, irregular present participle of sentire to feel — more at sense

Date: 14th century

1 obsolete : opinion; especially : a conclusion given on request or reached after deliberation
2 a : judgment 2a; specifically : one formally pronounced by a court or judge in a criminal proceeding and specifying the punishment to be inflicted upon the convict b : the punishment so imposed <serve out a sentence>
3 archaic : maxim, saw
4 a : a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses b : a mathematical or logical statement (as an equation or a proposition) in words or symbols
5 : period 2b