To penalize means to punish someone for breaking a rule or doing something wrong. When a referee penalizes a basketball player for fouling, the other team might get free throws. When a teacher penalizes students for turning in homework late, they might lose points on their grade.

A penalty is the punishment itself: the loss of yards in football, the time in the penalty box in hockey, or the fee you pay for an overdue library book. The goal of penalizing someone is usually to discourage the behavior and keep things fair for everyone else.

Sometimes people feel penalized when something works against them even though they didn't do anything wrong. A student who studied hard but got sick on test day might feel penalized by bad timing. A runner whose shoelace breaks during a race might feel penalized by bad luck. In these cases, the word describes feeling unfairly disadvantaged, even if no actual rule was broken and no official punishment was given.

Notice that penalizing focuses on the consequence rather than the wrongdoing. A judge penalizes someone who breaks the law by sentencing them to community service. A game penalizes players who break rules so that nobody gains an advantage by cheating.