career criminal

American  

[ker-eer krim-uh-nuhl] / kərˈɪər ˈkrɪm ə nəl /

noun

plural

career criminals

1. a person who has committed numerous crimes, particularly one who makes a living through criminal activity.

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Example Sentences

Not everybody has the resilience—or luck—to survive like Lily Dillon, the career criminal in “The Grifters” and one of Thompson’s fiercest characters.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 2, 2026

By its very nature the justice system is glacial, methodical, punctilious, and backward-looking in ways that make keeping up with the well-resourced, wealthy career criminal supremely challenging.

From Slate • Oct. 25, 2024

He described McSweeney as a "career criminal" who had been in and out of jail since the age of 16 and said that he "should have been considered a high-risk-of-serious-harm offender".

From BBC • Oct. 19, 2023

The use of Thug’s lyrics to portray him as a career criminal is a frequent tactic for prosecutors, said Dina LaPolt, a music industry attorney and member of the advocacy group Black Music Action Coalition.

From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2022

“We’re delighted the Supreme Court agrees that Mr. Wooden is not an armed career criminal and never should have been subject to a fifteen-year mandatory-minimum sentence,” Wooden’s attorney Allon Kedem wrote in an email.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 7, 2022