Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th Edition
SENTENCE
I. noun see: sense
Date: 14th century
opinion ,
2. judgment 2a, the punishment so imposed , maxim , saw ,
4. a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses, a mathematical or logical statement (as an equation or a proposition) in words or symbols, period 2b,
II. transitive verb (sentenced; sentencing)
Date: 1592
to impose a sentence on, to cause to suffer something