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Showing results for career criminal. Search instead for observed criminals.

career criminal

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

noun

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


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


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.

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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

That is a little like complimenting a career criminal for pleading guilty instead of insisting on a jury trial.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 23, 2024

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

Hanson also is serving a life sentence for several federal convictions, including being a career criminal, that predate his state death sentence.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 13, 2022

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