0 present participle of sentence
1 to decide and say officially what a punishment will be:
He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Her sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment.
As it was her first conviction for stealing, she was given a less severe sentence.
In some countries, drug-smuggling still carries the death sentence.
The judge made an example of him and gave him the maximum possible sentence.
Should the case be solved, the amnesty (if appropriate) could only be applied at sentencing, not before.
The low sentencing rate in libel cases tells us nothing about the intense legal pressure thus brought to bear on the accused.
This was most obvious in debt suits involving conditional bonds, which had a high sentencing rate.