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criminality

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Etymology

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From French criminalité, from Latin criminalitas, from Latin criminalis. By surface analysis, criminal +‎ -ity.

Noun

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criminality (countable and uncountable, plural criminalities)

  1. (uncountable) The state of being criminal.
    Synonyms: criminalness; see also Thesaurus:villainy
    • 2024 April 11, Ted Hesson, Mica Rosenberg, “Explainer: Trump says migrants are fueling violent crime. Here is what the research shows”, in Reuters[1], archived from the original on 12 April 2024:
      A more limited universe of studies specifically examine criminality among immigrants in the U.S. illegally but also find that they do not commit crimes at a higher rate.
  2. (uncountable) Criminal activity.
    Synonyms: crime, delinquency
    rampant criminality
    • 2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 63:
      The memorandum of understanding between the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, the Office of Rail and Road and the police states: "In the absence of a clear indication that serious criminality has caused the accident, RAIB will normally have precedence in respect of the investigation and will assume lead responsibility for the investigation."
  3. (countable) A criminal act.
    Synonyms: crime, criminal offence; see also Thesaurus:crime
    • 1910 October, Jack London, chapter VIII, in Burning Daylight, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, part II, pages 181–182:
      The storm-centre of a combined newspaper attack lasting for months, Daylight's character had been torn to shreds. There was no fact in his history that had not been distorted into a criminality or a vice. This public making of him over into an iniquitous monster had pretty well crushed any lingering hope he had of getting acquainted with Dede Mason.

Derived terms

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Translations

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