Other forms: vigilantes
A vigilante is somebody who takes law enforcement into their own hands. A vigilante group, vigilante justice, act as a vigilante.
The word is critical rather than admiring, whatever films suggest, and the objection is not that vigilantes punish the guilty but that they have no way of knowing who is guilty. Vigilante killings of the wrongly accused are common where the practice takes hold.
1nounvigilanteSomebody who takes law enforcement into their own hands.
“After the police failed to act, a vigilante began hunting down the thieves himself.”
vigilante is a person.
Spanish vigilante means a watchman, from Latin vigilare, to keep watch. Vigilant is its doublet.
Latin
vigilans
Spanish
vigilante — watchman, guard
English, today
vigilante
Spanish vigilante (“watchman, guard”), from Latin vigilans. a doublet of vigilant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA