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sentence

Pronunciation: /ˈsɛnt(ə)ns/

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Definition of sentence

noun

  • 1a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.
  • Logic a series of signs or symbols expressing a proposition in an artificial or logical language.
  • 2the punishment assigned to a defendant found guilty by a court, or fixed by law for a particular offence:her husband is serving a three-year sentence for fraud slander of an official carried an eight-year prison sentence he was under sentence of death

verb

[with object]
  • declare the punishment decided for (an offender):ten army officers were sentenced to life imprisonment

Origin:

Middle English (in the senses 'way of thinking, opinion', 'court's declaration of punishment', and 'gist (of a piece of writing')): via Old French from Latin sententia 'opinion', from sentire 'feel, be of the opinion'

Grammar

A unit of language consisting of one or more finite clauses. If a sentence contains just one clause, it is described as simple:The commissioners entered Pisa on Friday 8 June. Surrounded by high waves, in the middle of the North Sea, a team of French engineers are constructing the first offshore oil-rig platforms. As the second of the examples shows, simple sentences are not necessarily either short or simple in meaning.If a sentence contains more than one finite clause it is described as multiple. In the example that follows the clauses are marked:

Nobody is surewhether it will workbut everything has to be done fast.
Multiple sentences can be either compound or complex.

Spelling help

The ending of sentence is spelled -ence.

sentence in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of sentence in the US English dictionary