Other forms: crimes
A crime is an action that breaks the law and can be punished by the state. Commit a crime, a serious crime, crime has fallen since 2010.
It works as both a countable noun for a single act and an uncountable one for crime in general, and that second use is what newspapers mean by crime figures. The verb is commit, never do or make: commit a crime. Note the family — a criminal is both the person and the adjective, and criminal law is the branch that deals with it. Informally, crime is also used for anything shameful: it is a crime to overcook a steak like that, which nobody means literally.
1nouncrimeAn act that breaks the law.
“The crime was reported the same evening.”
synonyms: offence, felony
2nounillegalIllegal activity in general.
“Crime in the area has fallen for three years running.”
3nounregardedSomething regarded as shameful.
“It is a crime to leave a view like that behind a fence.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
crime is an illegal act.
Also accepted in games: offence, offense
Latin crimen originally meant an accusation or a charge, not the deed itself — the pointing of a finger rather than the act. English kept the word and moved it from the accusation to the thing accused of.
Proto-Indo-European
*krey-
Latin
crīmen
Old French
crime
Middle English
cryme
English, today
crime
From Middle English cryme, crime, from Old French crime, crimne, from Latin crīmen. Displaced native Old English firen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA