noun
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the state or quality of being criminal
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rare (often plural) a criminal act or practice
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of criminality
From the Medieval Latin word crīminālitās, dating back to 1605–15. See criminal, -ity
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:
Ramírez’s personal politics would be supplanted by crude criminality; beginning as a revolutionary, he ended up as a money-grubbing freelance mercenary.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Constitution, and subsequent American practice that it reaches corruption in office for the personal gain of oneself or one’s family, serious criminality, and direct violations of significant provisions of the Constitution.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
Frenkel said that if criminality is found in complex investigations such as this one, federal prosecutors will typically file mail or wire fraud charges that carry up to 20 years in prison.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
"If that happened, police could not make arrests, courts could not remand offenders and there would be unchecked criminality on our streets," it added.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
David Braman’s ethnographic research shows that mass incarceration, far from reducing the stigma associated with criminality, actually creates a deep silence in communities of color, one rooted in shame.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
The government and the military are stepping up actions “to minimize the criminalities along the oil production lines,” said Horatius Egua, a senior official at the petroleum ministry.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2022
But besides this scale for classification, the military law, to which cadets, as part of the army, are amenable, refers all immoralities and criminalities to a military tribunal.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 76, February, 1864 by Various
And his knowledge, especially of criminalities and the workings of crooked minds, seemed very marvellous to those who sought him out.
From The Penalty by Howard Chandler Christy
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.
