CRIMINAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does criminal mean? 

• CRIMINAL (noun)
  The noun CRIMINAL has 1 sense:

1. someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime

  Familiarity information: CRIMINAL used as a noun is very rare.

• CRIMINAL (adjective)
  The adjective CRIMINAL has 3 senses:

1. bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure

2. guilty of crime or serious offense

3. involving or being or having the nature of a crime

  Familiarity information: CRIMINAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CRIMINAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw

Hypernyms ("criminal" is a kind of...):

principal ((criminal law) any person involved in a criminal offense, regardless of whether the person profits from such involvement)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "criminal"):

arsonist; firebug; incendiary (a criminal who illegally sets fire to property)

law offender; lawbreaker; violator (someone who violates the law)

traitor; treasonist (someone who betrays his country by committing treason)

stealer; thief (a criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it)

contrabandist; moon-curser; moon curser; runner; smuggler (someone who imports or exports without paying duties)

scofflaw (one who habitually ignores the law and does not answer court summonses)

habitual criminal; recidivist; repeater (someone who is repeatedly arrested for criminal behavior (especially for the same criminal behavior))

raper; rapist (someone who forces another to have sexual intercourse)

racketeer (someone who commits crimes for profit (especially one who obtains money by fraud or extortion))

drug dealer; drug peddler; drug trafficker; peddler; pusher (an unlicensed dealer in illegal drugs)

parolee; probationer (someone released on probation or on parole)

liquidator; manslayer; murderer (a criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being))

gangster's moll; gun moll; moll (the girlfriend of a gangster)

mafioso (a member of the Mafia crime syndicate in the United States)

abductor; kidnaper; kidnapper; snatcher (someone who unlawfully seizes and detains a victim (usually for ransom))

gaolbird; jail bird; jailbird (a criminal who has been jailed repeatedly)

goon; hood; hoodlum; punk; strong-armer; thug; tough; toughie (an aggressive and violent young criminal)

highjacker; hijacker (someone who uses force to take over a vehicle (especially an airplane) in order to reach an alternative destination)

highbinder (a corrupt politician)

gangster; mobster (a criminal who is a member of gang)

fugitive; fugitive from justice (someone who is sought by law officers; someone trying to elude justice)

desperado; desperate criminal (a bold outlaw (especially on the American frontier))

coconspirator; conspirator; machinator; plotter (a member of a conspiracy)

briber; suborner (someone who pays (or otherwise incites) you to commit a wrongful act)

bootlegger; moonshiner (someone who makes or sells illegal liquor)

blackmailer; extortioner; extortionist (a criminal who extorts money from someone by threatening to expose embarrassing information about them)

accessary; accessory (someone who helps another person commit a crime)

Instance hyponyms:

Billie the Kid; Bonney; William H. Bonney (United States outlaw who was said to have killed 21 men (1859-1881))

James; Jesse James (United States outlaw who fought as a Confederate soldier and later led a band of outlaws that robbed trains and banks in the West until he was murdered by a member of his own gang (1847-1882))

MacGregor; Rob Roy; Robert MacGregor (Scottish clan leader and outlaw who was the subject of a 1817 novel by Sir Walter Scott (1671-1734))

Derivation:

criminalize (treat as a criminal)

• CRIMINAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure

Synonyms:

condemnable; criminal; deplorable; reprehensible; vicious

Context example:

adultery is as reprehensible for a husband as for a wife

Similar:

wrong (contrary to conscience or morality or law)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Guilty of crime or serious offense

Context example:

criminal in the sight of God and man

Similar:

guilty (responsible for or chargeable with a reprehensible act)

Derivation:

criminality; criminalness (the state of being a criminal)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Involving or being or having the nature of a crime

Synonyms:

criminal; felonious

Context example:

felonious intent

Similar:

illegal (prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules)

Derivation:

crime ((criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act)

crime (an evil act not necessarily punishable by law)

criminalness (the state of being a criminal)

 Context examples 

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

After a short pause he resumed the conversation by saying,—Does your sister make no distinction in her objections against a second attachment? or is it equally criminal in every body?

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The possession of this trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strange criminal, than a human life.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

You have no working-class nor criminal practice.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That way, it would be possible to detect if a criminal is lying or to know the true intentions of people trying to cross the border between two countries.

(The most reliable scientific model to date for detecting when a person is lying, based on thermography, University of Granada)

The criminal always work at one crime—that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I know it must have been severe, by my own feelings, Copperfield; which were like a criminal's.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)