Usually means: Prison for serious criminal offenders.
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We found 35 dictionaries that define the word penitentiary:

General (25 matching dictionaries)
  1. penitentiary: Merriam-Webster.com
  2. penitentiary: Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
  3. penitentiary: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
  4. penitentiary: Collins English Dictionary
  5. penitentiary: Vocabulary.com
  6. Penitentiary, penitentiary: Wordnik
  7. penitentiary: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary
  8. penitentiary: Wiktionary
  9. penitentiary: Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.
  10. penitentiary: The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus
  11. penitentiary: Infoplease Dictionary
  12. penitentiary: Dictionary.com
  13. penitentiary: Online Etymology Dictionary
  14. penitentiary: Cambridge Essential American English Dictionary
  15. Penitentiary (disambiguation), Penitentiary: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
  16. Penitentiary: Online Plain Text English Dictionary
  17. penitentiary: Webster's Revised Unabridged, 1913 Edition
  18. penitentiary: Rhymezone
  19. Penitentiary: AllWords.com Multi-Lingual Dictionary
  20. penitentiary: Webster's 1828 Dictionary
  21. penitentiary: Free Dictionary
  22. penitentiary: Mnemonic Dictionary
  23. penitentiary: Dictionary/thesaurus

Business (6 matching dictionaries)
  1. penitentiary: Webster's New World Law Dictionary
  2. penitentiary: Law.com Dictionary
  3. Everybody's Legal Dictionary (No longer online)
  4. Glossary of Legal Terms (No longer online)
  5. Bouvier's Law Dictionary 1856 Edition (No longer online)
  6. penitentiary: Legal dictionary

Computing (1 matching dictionary)
  1. penitentiary: Encyclopedia

Medicine (1 matching dictionary)
  1. online medical dictionary (No longer online)

Slang (2 matching dictionaries)
  1. penitentiary, penitentiary: Green’s Dictionary of Slang
  2. penitentiary: Urban Dictionary

(Note: See penitentiaries as well.)

Definitions from Wiktionary (
)
American English Definition British English Definition
noun:  (chiefly US) A state or federal prison for convicted felons; (loosely) a prison.
noun:  A priest in the Roman Catholic Church who administers the sacrament of penance.
noun:  (obsolete) One who prescribes the rules and measures of penance.
noun:  (obsolete) One who does penance.
noun:  (obsolete) A small building in a monastery, or a part of a church, where penitents confessed.
noun:  (obsolete) An office of the papal court which examines cases of conscience, confession, absolution from vows, etc., and delivers decisions, dispensations, etc.; run by a cardinal called the Grand Penitentiary who is appointed by the pope.
noun:  (obsolete) An officer in some dioceses since 1215, vested with power from the bishop to absolve in cases reserved to him.
adjective:  Of or relating to penance; penitential.
adjective:  Of or relating to the punishment of criminals.

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