impunity
Exemption from punishment.
Noun
- Exemption from punishment.
- Freedom from punishment or retribution; security from any reprisal or injurious consequences of an action, behaviour etc.
- Maternus, a private ſoldier, of a daring boldneſs above his ſtation,[…] plundered with impunity the rich and defenceleſs cities of Gaul and Spain. - 1776, Edward Gibbon, chapter IV, in The History of the Decline and...
- I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. - 1846, Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado:
- The remoteness of the prison made the authorities feel they could ignore us with impunity. - 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 495:
Origin
From Middle French impunité, from Latin impunitas, from impunis (“without punishment”).