criminal
Americanadjective
noun
noun
-
a person charged with and convicted of crime
-
a person who commits crimes for a living
adjective
-
of, involving, or guilty of crime
-
(prenominal) of or relating to crime or its punishment
criminal court
criminal lawyer
-
informal senseless or deplorable
a criminal waste of money
Usage
What is a basic definition of criminal? A criminal is a person who commits crime. Criminal is also used to describe something involved in committing crime or related to crime. Criminal has a few other senses as an adjective.A criminal is a person who breaks the law and engages in illegal activity.
- Real-life examples: Shoplifters, kidnappers, bank robbers, and pirates are all criminals.
- Used in a sentence: The judged sentenced the two wanted criminals to prison for stealing a car.
- Real-life examples: Stealing a car, robbing someone’s house, and printing fake money to use as real money are all criminal acts. They are all against the law, and a person will be arrested if caught doing any of these acts. Police might say a person is accused of criminal activity if they believe the person was doing something illegal.
- Used in a sentence: The gangster Al Capone was in charge of a criminal organization.
- Real-life examples: In the United States, criminal law is a collection of laws that state what the government or society says is a crime and will result in punishment by the state if someone is proved to have broken the law. A criminal lawyer is a lawyer who specializes in criminal law.
- Used in a sentence: When Jimmy was arrested for breaking into his neighbor’s house, he called a criminal lawyer to help him.
Related Words
See illegal.
Other Word Forms
- criminally adverb
- noncriminal adjective
- noncriminally adverb
- quasi-criminal adjective
- quasi-criminally adverb
- subcriminal adjective
- subcriminally adverb
- supercriminal adjective
- supercriminally adverb
- uncriminal adjective
- uncriminally adverb
Etymology
Origin of criminal
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin crīminālis, from Latin crīmin- (stem of crīmen “accusation, blame, charge”; crime ) + -ālis -al 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year announced the deployment of 2,200 soldiers to five of the country's nine provinces hardest hit by criminal activities.
From BBC
Levy: I have a completely unfounded fear of being trapped in an organized criminal situation.
From Los Angeles Times
In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.
From Salon
She added that it was "in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings".
From BBC
Justice Horace Gray didn’t say that “jurisdiction” means being subject to ordinary criminal or civil law, as opponents of the president’s order maintain.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
