Origin: Latin suffix -ary
Disciplinary has 5 different meanings across 1 category:
A disciplinary action.
"The new employee received a written warning as part of the disciplinary process after arriving late three times in one week."
relating to a specific field of academic study
"economics in its modern disciplinary sense"
designed to promote discipline
"the teacher's action was corrective rather than instructional"
"disciplinal measures"
"the mother was stern and disciplinary"
Having to do with discipline, or with the imposition of discipline.
"The teacher issued disciplinary measures after students refused to follow classroom rules."
In plain English: Disciplinary means related to punishing someone for breaking rules, especially by giving them consequences they must accept.
"The teacher gave disciplinary action to students who disrupted class repeatedly."
Usage: Use disciplinary when referring to actions taken by an authority figure to correct behavior, such as school suspensions or workplace warnings. This term is often confused with descriptive adjectives like "disciplined," which means having self-control rather than being subjected to rules.
The word disciplinary comes from the Medieval Latin disciplinarius, which was derived from the Latin disciplina meaning "instruction" or "teaching." It entered English to describe things related to instruction and training.