bandit
Americannoun
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bandits,
plural
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banditti
plural
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a robber, especially a member of a gang or marauding band.
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an outlaw or highwayman.
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Informal.
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Military Informal. an enemy aircraft, especially an attacking fighter.
idioms
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of bandit
First recorded in 1585–95; earlier bandetto, plural banditti, from Italian banditi “outlaws,” plural of bandito “proscribed,” past participle of bandire “banish, exile, announce publicly,” from Gothic bandwjan “to make a sign, indicate” ( cf. band 1) with verb suffix -ire, from Latin -īre
Explanation
A bandit is a robber, thief, or outlaw. If you cover your face with a bandanna, jump on your horse, and rob the passengers on a train, you're a bandit. A bandit typically belongs to a gang of bandits who commit crimes in remote, lawless, or out-of-the-way places. A bus traveling through an isolated location that's not policed might be at risk for being attacked by bandits. The word bandit comes from the Italian bandito, "outlaw," from the Vulgar Latin bannire, "to proclaim or proscribe," by way of a Germanic root that's shared by ban.
Vocabulary lists containing bandit
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 1
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Enrique's Journey
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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
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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.
See Examples For:
Nigeria's police and military have long been overstretched: across its north, Africa's most populous country is fighting a long-running jihadist insurgency, complicated by inroads made by militants from the Sahel, and non-ideological "bandit" gangs.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
Bernthal, who plays Sonny, has his own wayward machismo and hapless sensitivity, the very qualities that made Al Pacino unforgettable in the role of the bungling bandit with a Catholic conscience.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026
One sculpture transforms the European hero Robin Hood into an African bandit queen who raided slave traders and freed their captives.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026
He recently blamed "bandit" smugglers for the balloons, saying they were just seeking a profit and getting creative about overcoming the new security fence.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2025
“Because it goes with the whole bandit theme.”
From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein
The life of a superhero lends itself well to gallivanting through galaxies, battling space pirates and star bandits.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2026
The Rams made out like bandits when the Falcons struggled and the pick they got back turned out to land at No. 13.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
A security report cited by AFP said bandits came on "41 motorcycles, each carrying two or three men".
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2026
The military is stretched thin on other fronts as well, including fighting armed gangs known as "bandits" in the northwest and separatists in the southeast.
From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026
The last time we had stayed late, my mother had phoned the police and told them we had been kidnapped by bandits.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
There are gold mines and roving banditti; mules are branded, and dung is hauled to smoke out grasshoppers.
From New York Times ● Nov. 26, 2018
One internal British memo portrayed him after victory as demanding the runaways be returned "with all the grossness and ferocity of a captain of banditti".
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2017
Stalin has surrounded himself with as intelligent a group of banditti as ever started out to sack and dominate the universe.
From Time Magazine Archive
These ornate banditti are mountaineers of the tribe of Mati, and they guard their tribal Chief, Ahmed Bey Zogu, who is nominally President and actually Dictator of Albania.
From Time Magazine Archive
Neither contingency was unlikely, for the writ of the king ran barely a league from the army, and the country was full of banditti.
From The Honour of Savelli A Romance by S. (Sidney) Levett-Yeats
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.
