impunity

noun

im·​pu·​ni·​ty im-ˈpyü-nə-tē 

: exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss

laws were flouted with impunity

Did you know?

Impunity, like the words pain, penal, and punish, traces to the Latin noun poena, meaning "punishment." Poena, in turn, came from the Greek poinē, meaning "payment" or "penalty." Impunity has been around since the 1500s; in 1660, Englishman Roger Coke wrote "This unlimited power of doing anything with impunity, will only beget a confidence in kings of doing what they [desire]." While royals may act with impunity more easily than others, the word impunity can be applied to beings great and small. Take, for example, this 2023 quote from the Sidmouth Herald in England: "The [yew tree] fruits are readily eaten by birds but they do not digest the seeds as they are poisonous. Only one bird, the rare and shy Hawfinch, is able to eat the seeds with impunity."

Synonyms of impunity

• immunity
• protection
• exemption

Examples of impunity in a Sentence

she mistakenly believed that she could insult people with impunity

Recent Examples on the Web

Hernández now returns to the country to face corruption charges amid concerns that a weak justice system and his party’s return to the presidency will ensure his impunity. — ABC News, 26 July 2026

The novel also alludes to contemporary examples of violence in the country’s current, democratic system, gesturing to the ways in which brutality persists in Brazil as state and corporate power continue to commit violence with near impunity. — Literary Hub, 24 July 2026

But this is a story about how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police handled the hanging death of a Black girl in the South, a region where white people publicly lynched Black people with impunity a few generations ago. — Caitlin McGlade, Charlotte Observer, 22 July 2026

Gérald Marie potentially raped dozens of young women between the 1980s and the 2000s, acting with a sense of total impunity and within an utterly intolerable culture of rape. — Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 17 July 2026

Word History

Etymology

Middle French or Latin; Middle French impunité, from Latin impunitat-, impunitas, from impune without punishment, from in- + poena punishment — more at pain entry 1

First Known Use

1532, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for impunity

• community
• disunity
• immunity
• autoimmunity
• importunity
• opportunity
• munity
• unity

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Kids Definition

impunity

noun

im·​pu·​ni·​ty im-ˈpyü-nət-ē 

: freedom from punishment, harm, or loss