Punishable means of a kind the law will punish. A punishable offence, punishable by fine, punishable by law.
It is followed by by and then the penalty — punishable by a fine, punishable by imprisonment — which is the standard formula in statutes and notices. It describes the act rather than the person. Note punish, punishment; and that the Latin poena, a penalty, also gives pain and penalty.
1adjectivepunishableOf a kind the law will punish.
“In some countries, dropping litter is punishable by a heavy fine.”
punishable is a quality of being liable to penalty.
Proto-Indo-European
*kʷey-
Latin
puniō — to inflict punishment upon
Middle English
punischen
English
punish
English, today
punishable
Built from
From punish + -able. punish comes from Middle English punischen, from Anglo-Norman -, Old French - puniss-, stem of some of the conjugated forms of punir, from Latin puniō (“to inflict punishment upon”), from poena (“punishment, penalty”); see pain. Displaced wītnian and (mostly, in this sense) wrecan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA