# sentence

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈsɛn.təns/ · frequency rank #2,599

## Definitions
1. The decision or judgement of a jury or court; a verdict.
2. The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
3. A punishment imposed on a person convicted of a crime.
4. A saying, especially from a great person; a maxim, an apophthegm.
5. A grammatically complete series of words consisting of a subject and predicate, even if one or the other is implied. In modern writing, when using e.g. the Latin, Greek or Cyrillic alphabets, typically beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop or other punctuation.
6. A formula with no free variables.
7. Any of the set of strings that can be generated by a given formal grammar.
8. Sense; meaning; significance.
9. One's opinion; manner of thinking.
10. A pronounced opinion or judgment on a given question.

## Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French sentence, from Latin sententia (“way of thinking, opinion, sentiment”), from sentiēns, present participle of sentiō (“to feel, think”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sent- (“to feel”).

## Easily confused with
- **sequence** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sentence-vs-sequence)
- **sentences** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sentence-vs-sentences)
- **sentenced** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/sentence-vs-sentenced)

## Common misspellings (13)
`esntence`, `senetnce`, `senntence`, `sentance`, `sentecne`, `sentencce`, `sentenec`, `sentennce`, `sentnece`, `senttence`, `setnence`, `snetence`, `ssentence`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/sentence