
Impunity -- Noun. exemption or freedom from punishment, harm or loss. "We realized we needed to have some sort of penalty or else these landlords would simply engage in this behavior with impunity." David Chiu, quoted in The Washington Post, September 19, 2017
Did You Know? Impunity (like the words pain, penal, and punish) traces to the Latin noun poena, meaning "punishment." The Latin word, in turn, came from the Greek poine, meaning "payment" or "penalty." People acting with impunity have prompted use of the word since the 1500s, as in this 1660 example by Englishman Roger Coke: "This unlimited power of doing anything with impunity, will only beget a confidence in kings of doing what they list [desire]." While royals may act with impunity more easily than others, the word impunity can be applied to the lowliest of beings as well as the loftiest: "Certain beetles have learned to detoxify [willow] leaves in their digestive tract so they can eat them with impunity" (Smithsonian, September 1986).
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