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telish

verb /ˈtɛlɪʃ/

  1. Punish (an innocent person) for the sake of deterrence; subject (a person) to telishment.

    How is one to limit the risks involved in allowing such systematic deception? How is one to avoid giving anything short of complete discretion to the authorities to telish anyone they like?

Where it comes from

Coined by John Rawls in his 1955 paper “Two Concepts of Rules”. Probably a portmanteau of the Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “result”, “end”, loosely “the greater good”) and the English (pun)ish, after telishment.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry telish (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← telictelishment →

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