punitive damages

1. 1.

   (law) compensation in excess of actual damages (a form of punishment awarded in cases of malicious or willful misconduct)

   Synonymsexemplary damagessmart money

   Broaderdamages

   Narrowerdouble damagestreble damages

   law

Questions about punitive damages

What does punitive damages mean?

punitive damages means "(law) compensation in excess of actual damages (a form of punishment awarded in cases of malicious or willful misconduct)".

What is another word for punitive damages?

Close synonyms include exemplary damages, smart money. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is punitive damages a common word?

punitive damages is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.