Other forms: criminals
A criminal is somebody who has broken the law. A convicted criminal, a career criminal, criminals were caught on camera.
It is also an adjective — a criminal offence, criminal damage, the criminal justice system — and there it means belonging to the branch of law that deals with crime, as against civil law, which deals with disputes between people. That distinction is the important one: a criminal case is brought by the state and a civil case by a person. Note the informal use of criminal to mean scandalous: it is criminal what they charge for a coffee.
1nouncriminalSomebody who has broken the law.
“The criminals were traced through the car.”
2adjectiverelatingRelating to crime and the law that deals with it.
“It is a criminal offence, not a civil one.”
3adjectivescandalousScandalous, in informal use.
“It is criminal that the building was allowed to fall down.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
criminal is a lawbreaker.
Latin criminalis comes from crimen, an accusation — so a criminal was originally somebody accused rather than somebody convicted. English tightened it, but the older sense survives in the phrase criminal charge.
Proto-Indo-European
*krey-
Latin
criminalis
Anglo-Norman
criminal
Middle English
cryminal
English, today
criminal
From Middle English cryminal, borrowed from Anglo-Norman criminal, from Latin criminalis, from Latin crimen (“crime”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA