Meaning & use
juvenile delinquent
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountabledisapprovinglegal
A young person who regularly breaks the law or behaves in an antisocial way.
Grammar: Countable noun; usually used about someone under the legal age of adulthood.
Patterns
- a juvenile delinquent who...
- treat someone as a juvenile delinquent
The film is about a juvenile delinquent who finds a mentor.
He was labeled a juvenile delinquent after several incidents at school.
The program offers counseling to every juvenile delinquent it sees.
Word forms
| plural | juvenile delinquents |
|---|
Common combinations
- labeled a juvenile delinquent
- She was labeled a juvenile delinquent unfairly.
- treat as a juvenile delinquent
- The school refused to treat him as a juvenile delinquent.
- juvenile delinquent program
- The juvenile delinquent program focuses on education.
- former juvenile delinquent
- He is a former juvenile delinquent who now mentors teenagers.
- rehabilitate a juvenile delinquent
- The center tries to rehabilitate each juvenile delinquent.
Synonyms and how they differ
- young offender
- Young offender is the more current and neutral term, especially in official British writing.
- delinquent
- Delinquent can apply to adults, for example for unpaid debts, whereas juvenile delinquent specifies youth.
- hooligan
- Hooligan is informal and suggests loud, violent behavior in public, not necessarily a young person.
- troublemaker
- Troublemaker is informal and mild, and does not mean the person has broken the law.
Opposites
Word family
- delinquency noun
- criminal or antisocial behavior, especially of the young
- juvenile adjective
- relating to young people
- delinquent adjective
- guilty of minor crime or neglect
- juvenile court noun
- a court for people under the legal age of adulthood
Commonly confused: juvenile delinquent or juvenile?
juvenile delinquent vs juvenile
Juvenile alone means young or childish, and does not imply any crime.
Practice
Many professionals now avoid the phrase juvenile delinquent because it ___.
Choose one answer.
The phrase can stigmatize young people, so alternatives like young offender are preferred. It does not refer to adults.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “juvenile delinquent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.