sanction

1. Authoritative permission or approval that makes a course of action valid. See synonyms at permission.
2. Support or encouragement, as from public opinion or established custom.
3. A consideration, influence, or principle that dictates an ethical choice.
4. 1. A law or decree.
   2. The penalty for noncompliance specified in a law or decree.
5. A penalty, specified or in the form of moral pressure, that acts to ensure compliance or conformity.
6. A coercive measure adopted usually by several nations acting together against a nation violating international law.

1. To give official authorization or approval to: "The president, we are told, has sanctioned greed at the cost of compassion" (David Rankin).
2. To encourage or tolerate by indicating approval. See synonyms at approve.
3. To penalize, especially for violating a moral principle or international law.

[Middle English, enactment of a law, from Old French, ecclesiastical decree, from Latin sānctiō, sānctiōn-, binding law, penal sanction, from sānctus, holy. See sanctify.]

WORD HISTORY   Occasionally, a word can have contradictory meanings. Such a case is represented by sanction, which can mean both "to allow, encourage" and "to punish so as to deter." It is a borrowing from the Latin word sānctiō, meaning "a law or decree that is sacred or inviolable." In English, the word is first recorded in the mid-1500s in the meaning "law, decree," but not long after, in about 1635, it refers to "the penalty enacted to cause one to obey a law or decree." Thus from the beginning two fundamental notions of law were wrapped up in it: law as something that permits or approves and law that forbids by punishing. From the noun, a verb sanction was created in the 18th century meaning "to allow by law," but it wasn't until the second half of the 20th century that it began to mean "to punish (for breaking a law)." English has a few other words that can refer to opposites, such as the verbs dust (meaning both "to remove dust from" and "to put dust on") and trim (meaning both "to cut something away" and "to add something as an ornament").

noun

1. The approving of an action, especially when done by one in authority: allowance, approbation, approval, authorization, consent, endorsement, leave², license, permission, permit. Informal OK. See allow/prevent.
2. An act of confirming officially: affirmation, approval, confirmation, ratification. See law.
3. A coercive measure intended to ensure compliance or conformity: interdict, interdiction, penalty. See reward/punish/deserve.

verb

1. To give one's consent to: allow, approbate, approve, authorize, consent, endorse, let, permit. Informal OK. See allow/prevent.
2. To accept officially: adopt, affirm, approve, confirm, pass, ratify. See accept/reject, law.

Definition: authorization
Antonyms: ban, disapproval, prevention, prohibition, refusal, veto

n

Definition: embargo, punishment
Antonyms: award, honor, reward

v

Definition: authorize, confirm
Antonyms: ban, disapprove, prevent, prohibit, refuse, veto

A means by which a moral or social standard is enforced. Sanctions can be either positive (through rewards) or negative (through punishments). They may also be either formal, such as the imposition of a sporting boycott on a country whose policies are disapproved of by other governments; or informal, such as the refusal by one athlete to compete with another who has been found to have taken banned substances.

To assent, concur, confirm, approve, or ratify. The part of a law that is designed to secure enforcement by imposing a penalty for violation of the law or offering a reward for its observance. A punitive act taken by one nation against another nation that has violated a treaty or international law.

Sanction is a broad term with different meanings in different contexts. Sanction can be used to describe tacit or explicit approval. Used in this sense, the term usually is used in assigning liability to a party who was not actively involved in wrongdoing but who did nothing to prevent it. For example, if the upper-level managers of a business knew that their employees were using unfair employment practices and did nothing to stop them, it may be said that the managers sanctioned the unfair practices.

The term sanction also can describe disagreement and condemnation. In criminal law, a sanction is the punishment for a criminal offense. The criminal sanction for a criminal defendant varies according to the crime and includes such measures as death, incarceration, probation, community service, and monetary fines.

In civil law, a sanction is that part of a law that assigns a penalty for violation of the law's provisions. The most common civil sanction is a monetary fine, but other types of sanctions exist. Depending on the case, a sanction may be the suspension or revocation of a business, professional, or hobby license, or a court order commanding a person to do or refrain from doing something. A sanction may even be tailored to the case at hand. For instance, under rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, if a party refuses to obey a discovery order, or an order to relinquish requested evidence, the court may order that the evidence sought be automatically construed in favor of the requesting party, refuse to allow the disobedient party to make claims or defenses related to the evidence, stay or postpone the case until the discovery order is obeyed, dismiss the action or render judgment for the requesting party, declare the disobedient party in contempt of court, or make any other order that is just under the circumstances.

In civil litigation, sanctions are slightly different from remedies. A remedy is the relief accorded to a victorious litigant. The remedy may be money damages, an order that forbids or commands the opposing party or parties to do or refrain from doing a certain act or acts, or some other result favorable to the victorious litigant. Remedies are not always intended to punish a person, while sanctions are always punitive. Nevertheless, remedies and sanctions are similar in that they refer to a loss that a civil litigant must bear if she is found liable for a civil wrong.

In some cases a party may have to remedy another party's loss as well as suffer criminal and civil sanctions, all for the same act. For example, if an attorney is professionally negligent in his handling of a client's case and steals funds from the client's trust account, the attorney may face a malpractice civil suit from the aggrieved client in which the client asks for money as a remedy for the malpractice. The attorney also may suffer sanctions from the professional conduct committee of the state bar association and criminal sanctions from a prosecution for the theft.

The contempt-of-court offense provides a flexible form of sanction. Contempt-of-court sanctions may be either civil or criminal. The court may order a party to pay a fine or suffer some setback in the case (civil contempt), or it may order that the party be placed in jail (criminal contempt). The basic difference between the two is that criminal contempt is an act of disrespect toward the court, whereas civil contempt acts tend to be less offensive transgressions, such as the unintentional failure to comply with discovery orders or to perform other acts ordered by the court.

A common form of sanction is the administrative agency sanction against a corporation. Corporations must follow various rules passed by federal, state, and local administrative agencies authorized by lawmaking bodies to regulate specific topics of government concern. If a business does not obey agency rules that apply to it, it may face sanctions levied by the administrative agency responsible for enforcing the rules. For example, federal and state environmental protection agencies are authorized by statute to levy fines against businesses that violate environmental laws and regulations.

An international sanction is a special form of sanction taken by one country against another. International sanctions are measures that are designed to bring a delinquent or renegade state into compliance with expected rules of conduct. International sanctions may be either non-forceful or military. Military sanctions can range from cutting off access to limited strikes to full-scale war. Non-forceful international sanctions include diplomatic measures such as the withdrawal of an ambassador, the severing of diplomatic relations, or the filing of a protest with the United Nations; financial sanctions such as denying aid or cutting off access to financial institutions; and economic sanctions such as partial or total trade embargoes. The U.N. Security Council has the authority to impose economic and military sanctions on nations that pose a threat to peace.

Sanctions are penalties or other means of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law, or with rules and regulations.^[1] Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious punishment, such as capital punishment, prison time, or severe fines. Within the civil law context, sanctions are usually monetary fines, levied against a party to a lawsuit or his/her attorney, for violating rules of procedure, or for abusing the judicial process. The most severe sanction in a civil lawsuit is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of a complaining party's cause of action, or of the responding party's answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an appeal or trial de novo may be allowed because of reversible error.

As a noun, the term is usually used in the plural, even when it refers to a single event: if a judge fines a party, it is not said that he/she imposed a sanction, but that he/she imposed sanctions.

A judge may sanction a party during a legal proceeding, by which it is meant that he/she imposes penalties. In the United States federal court system, certain types of conduct are sanctionable under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Conversely and to some surprisingly, the word may be used to mean "approve of," especially in an official sense. "The law sanctions such behavior" would mean that the behavior spoken of enjoys the specific approval of law.

References

1. ^ Black, Henry Campbell (1990). Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed.. St. Paul, MN.: West Publishing. p. 1341. ISBN 031476271x. 

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - godkendelse, stadfæstelse, sanktion, hjemmel
v. tr. - godkende, bifalde, stadfæste, sanktionere, hjemle

Nederlands (Dutch)
goedkeuren, wettigen, straf opleggen, sanctie, verordening

Français (French)
n. - autorisation, sanction, (Jur) sanction, (Pol, Écon) sanction, embargo (npl)
v. tr. - autoriser, sanctionner

Deutsch (German)
n. - Sanktion, Bestätigung, Strafmaßnahme
v. - sanktionieren

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κύρωση, τιμωρία, συγκατάθεση, ανοχή, επιδοκιμασία, καθιέρωση, εξουσιοδότηση
v. - επικυρώνω, εξουσιοδοτώ, ανέχομαι, εγκρίνω, επιδοκιμάζω, δίνω την άδεια

Italiano (Italian)
approvare, rettificare, sancire penalmente, sanzione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sanção (f), consentimento (m)
v. - sancionar

Русский (Russian)
санкция, ратификация, утверждение, поддержка, одобрение, разрешение, санкционировать, утверждать, одобрять, разрешать, ратифицировать

Español (Spanish)
n. - sanción, autorización, aprobación, ratificación
v. tr. - sancionar, ratificar, confirmar, aprobar, autorizar

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - bifall, godkännande, tillstånd, sanktion, stöd, rättesnöre
v. - bifalla, godkänna, ge tillstånd till

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
核准, 约束力, 处罚, 认可, 赞许, 批准, 支持

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 核准, 約束力, 處罰
v. tr. - 認可, 贊許, 批准, 支援

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 인가, 제재 조치, 구속력
v. tr. - (표현, 행위 등을) 인정하다, 찬조하다, 제재 규정을 설정하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 認可, 是認, 制裁, 拘束
v. - 認可する, 是認する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) عقوبه, جزاء (فعل) يجيز, يقر, يصدق‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אישור, רשות, עידוד, מניע לשמירת חוק, עונש, עיצומים, סנקציה‬
v. tr. - ‮אישר, הרשה, עודד‬

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