criminal
Americanadjective
noun
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criminals
plural
noun
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a person charged with and convicted of crime
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a person who commits crimes for a living
adjective
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of, involving, or guilty of crime
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(prenominal) of or relating to crime or its punishment
criminal court
criminal lawyer
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informal senseless or deplorable
a criminal waste of money
Usage
What is a basic definition of criminal? A criminal is a person who commits crime. Criminal is also used to describe something involved in committing crime or related to crime. Criminal has a few other senses as an adjective. A criminal is a person who breaks the law and engages in illegal activity.
- Real-life examples: Shoplifters, kidnappers, bank robbers, and pirates are all criminals.
- Used in a sentence: The judged sentenced the two wanted criminals to prison for stealing a car.
- Real-life examples: Stealing a car, robbing someone’s house, and printing fake money to use as real money are all criminal acts. They are all against the law, and a person will be arrested if caught doing any of these acts. Police might say a person is accused of criminal activity if they believe the person was doing something illegal.
- Used in a sentence: The gangster Al Capone was in charge of a criminal organization.
- Real-life examples: In the United States, criminal law is a collection of laws that state what the government or society says is a crime and will result in punishment by the state if someone is proved to have broken the law. A criminal lawyer is a lawyer who specializes in criminal law.
- Used in a sentence: When Jimmy was arrested for breaking into his neighbor’s house, he called a criminal lawyer to help him.
Synonym Usage
See illegal.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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noncriminaladjective
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quasi-criminaladjective
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subcriminaladjective
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supercriminaladjective
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uncriminaladjective
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criminallyadverb
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noncriminallyadverb
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quasi-criminallyadverb
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subcriminallyadverb
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supercriminallyadverb
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uncriminallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of criminal
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin crīminālis, from Latin crīmin- (stem of crīmen “accusation, blame, charge”; see crime) + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
A criminal is someone who breaks the law. If you're a murderer, thief, or tax cheat, you're a criminal. When you think of criminals, your first thought might be of someone awful like a murderer. But this word is a lot broader — Anyone who breaks the law is technically a criminal, even if the crime is just not paying a speeding ticket. You can also talk about criminal activities: things that are illegal. Lots of TV shows are about police officers and lawyers trying to catch criminals who are engaged in all kinds of exciting criminal activity.
Vocabulary lists containing criminal
Way Off: Synonyms for "Wrong"
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Module 1: Vocabulary Video Words
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Crime and Punishment
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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:
That could be a criminal crew, a foreign intelligence service or a bored teenager.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 8, 2026
According to investigators quoted in the Polish media, Michal O. had no previous criminal record.
From Barron's ● Nov. 8, 2026
Bishops opposed lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14, while the Catholic charity Caritas proposes legislation to revive mothballed public works projects in poor neighborhoods.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 8, 2026
"Defending the freedom of a sovereign state, taking a clear stand in support of a nation's democracy and independence, is dangerous in the eyes of these criminal entities."
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2026
If you haven’t been charged with a crime, are you willing to risk the possibility that fighting the forfeiture might prompt the government to file criminal charges against you?
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Villanueva, on the other hand, depicts the department’s Luna era as a sweeping failure that has left morale low, deputy jobs unfilled and criminals unpunished.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026
America's lead federal agency for investigating financial crimes added that it would "identify the cyber criminals responsible and bring them to justice", while Binance also said it was working with the FBI.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
The names refer to clusters of cyber criminals accused of working directly for the regime.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
Incident responders such as Adair say that AI tools are now being used by nation-state hackers from China and Russia as well as criminals looking to steal data and install ransomware.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2026
“They were designed to hold captured wights, hardened criminals, and the dangerously insane,” Millard explained.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
