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impunity

UK/ɪmˈpjuːnɪti/US/ɪmˈpjuːnɪti/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,580 of 15,258neutral

Impunity is freedom from any punishment for what you have done. Act with impunity, a culture of impunity, enjoy impunity.

It appears almost only in the phrase with impunity, and it is always a complaint about power. Human rights reports use it as a technical term for a state that does not prosecute its own officials.

Definitions of impunity

  1. 1nounimpunityFreedom from any punishment for what you have done.C1

    “The gang robbed shops with impunity because the police were afraid of them.”

impunity is a freedom.

Where it comes from

Latin impunitas is in-, not, plus poena, punishment, the root of penalty and pain.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *kʷey-

  2. Latin

    impunitas

  3. Middle French

    impunité

  4. English, today

    impunity

Built from

  • impunis · Latin — without punishment

From Middle French impunité, from Latin impunitas, from impunis (“without punishment”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

impunity in the wild

  • Security forces commit killings and torture with impunity.

    Human rights in Cambodia

  • Anti-impunity is efforts to use criminal law to punish serious abusers of human rights.

    Anti-impunity

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.