Meaning & use
criminal
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person who has broken the law, especially by committing a serious crime.
Grammar: Countable: a criminal, many criminals.
Patterns
- a criminal who does something
The police caught the criminal within hours.
He was a violent criminal who had escaped prison.
Lawyers argue that the system should help a criminal change.
adjectivebefore a nounlaw
Connected with crime, or with the part of law dealing with crimes.
Grammar: Usually before a noun: criminal law, a criminal record.
Patterns
- criminal law
- criminal charges
He has a criminal record for fraud.
She studied criminal law at university.
Criminal charges were filed against the owner.
adjectivecomparableinformalfigurative
Extremely wrong or shameful, though not necessarily against the law.
Grammar: Often used with it is: it's criminal to waste so much food.
Patterns
- it's criminal to do something
- criminal waste
It's criminal that the library closed.
Throwing away good food is criminal.
The size of the delay is criminal.
Word forms
| plural | criminals |
|---|
Common combinations
- convicted criminal
- A convicted criminal lost the right to vote.
- hardened criminal
- Few believed the boy was a hardened criminal.
- criminal record
- A criminal record can make job hunting harder.
- criminal offense
- Fraud is a criminal offense.
- criminal investigation
- A criminal investigation was opened into the fire.
Synonyms and how they differ
- offender
- Offender is a neutral official word and can include minor lawbreakers, while criminal sounds more serious.
- lawbreaker
- Lawbreaker is plainer and covers any rule violation, even small ones.
- felon
- Felon is a legal term in the US for someone convicted of a serious crime.
- outlaw
- Outlaw is old-fashioned and suggests someone living outside the law, often in stories.
Opposites
Word family
- crime noun
- an act that breaks the law
- criminally adverb
- in a way connected with crime
- criminality noun
- criminal behavior or nature
- criminalize verb
- to make something illegal
- criminology noun
- the study of crime
Commonly confused: criminal or culprit?
criminal vs culprit
A culprit is the person responsible for a particular wrong, not necessarily a habitual lawbreaker.
Practice
After the trial, the jury found him guilty and he officially became a ____.
Choose one answer.
A criminal is a person who has broken the law, which matches the guilty verdict. A witness, victim and juror have other roles.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “criminal”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.