inflict
This deliberate infliction of damage on one of the city's finest buildings was an act of indefensible vandalism.
The cruelty offence applies only to deliberate infliction of unnecessary suffering.
They were accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Treating people or animals badly
a raw dealidiom
abuser
anti-harassment
at the hands of someoneidiom
batten
batten on someone
hit someone where it hurtsidiom
ill-treat
ill-treatment
ill-used
impose
prey on something
put someone through something
put upon
reduce
uncared for
use
victimization
victimize
victimology

Examples of infliction

infliction
Shaming penalties privatize both the determination of the severity of the sanction and the infliction of the sanction.
These negative reactions may in turn lead to the infliction of (justified or unjustified) privately inflicted sanctions such as social stigmatization and isolation.
Yet, in contrast to the instrumental justification, there are normative constraints that preclude the infliction of sanctions by agents other than the state.
The infliction of state-initiated privately inflicted sanctions is impermissible.
An example would be the infliction of harm in just punishment.
The successful infliction of punishments (or at least some types of punishments) hinges upon the identity of the agent who performs it.
Second, there is development from infliction of harm on relatives and peers to infliction of harm on strangers.
There is the punishment of loss and an infliction of experiential suffering that accompanies the judgement.
I think that the intuition that nothing could justify the infliction of a horrendous evil is correct, with one possible amendment.
This link, it will be argued, is indispensable to the legitimacy of the infliction of criminal sanctions triggered by violating state-issued prohibitions.
It is impermissible on the part of the state to authorize, encourage, or initiate the infliction of sanctions in the absence of such a link.
The act of paying is perhaps the most unfortunate infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.
Yet we are much more likely to consider gratuitous inflictions of negative emotional states as involving conflicts with, or the suppression of, our natures.
Two recent initiatives to privatize the infliction of sanctions, namely, shaming penalties and private prisons, illustrate the relevance of this conclusion to contemporary controversies.
The couple sued for conversion and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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