Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Criminal   /krˈɪmənəl/   Listen
Criminal

adjective
1.
Bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure.  Synonyms: condemnable, deplorable, reprehensible, vicious.  "A deplorable act of violence" , "Adultery is as reprehensible for a husband as for a wife"
2.
Guilty of crime or serious offense.
3.
Involving or being or having the nature of a crime.  Synonym: felonious.  "Criminal abuse" , "Felonious intent"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Criminal" Quotes from Famous Books



... After all, I hadn't fully believed that the boy had absolutely nothing to go on, that he had bought purely at a whim, put up eight hundred thousand dollars on my skill at running down a criminal. It sort of crumpled me up. I said so. He laughed a little, ran up to the curb at the Phelan building, cut out the engine, set the brake and turned ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... question through. She saw all at once the long series of temptations to which he must be subjected before he became a man. Yes, it was possible that this sweet child might grow up to disappoint her bitterly, to be far worse than an honest sailor,—a useless idler, or even a criminal. She shuddered at the very thought of the last, and with a great leaping of the heart she resolved that, if God should see fit to spare the child, her own life should be devoted to shaping his. She would forget herself entirely; her little ambitious projects should be wholly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... admiring praise she received divested the sacrifice of much of its bitterness, and increased her courage two-fold. Now, she was flying secretly, and alone, under an assumed name, trembling at the thought of pursuit or recognition—flying as a criminal flies at thought of his crime, and fear of punishment. She had far less suffered on the day, when, with her son upon her knees, she journeyed to the cemetery, following all that was mortal of the man who had been her only thought, her love, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... beneath the folds of the black banner of Catholicism, I sincerely and devoutly believed that to shield a Catholic criminal was a righteous and Godly calling, as I believed that to prevent the civil law from taking hold of the criminal career of a Catholic official, for his short-comings, was but ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... other, is warned, that if he does not make out what he denies, he shall undergo twenty strokes of the bamboo on his buttocks, and shall pay a fine of twenty fakuges, which amount to about two hundred dinars. And the punishment of the bamboo is so severe, that the criminal can hardly survive, and no person in all China is permitted to inflict it upon another by his own authority, on pain of death, and confiscation of his goods; so that no one is ever so hardy as to expose ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... questions, he was required to subscribe his own confession, which he assented to, if in mundo, without their additions; which at last through Lundy's influence they granted. And though they could prove nothing criminal against him, he was remanded back to prison, and by a letter from the king turned over to the criminal court, which was to meet March 18th. but was adjourned to two different terms after, till the month of July, that sentence ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... after all a mystery. Parties were divided about her. Some people who took the trouble to busy themselves in the matter said that she was the criminal, whilst others vowed that she was as innocent as a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault. She won over a good many by bursting into tears about her boy and exhibiting the most frantic grief when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like him. She gained ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Mayor, Jim didn't jes' lam Dave an walk off. (very emphatic) He 'saulted him wid de deadliest weepon there is in de world an' while he was layin' unconscious, he stole his turkey an' went. Brother Mayor, he's uh criminal an' oughter be run outa ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston

... Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence, from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825.' 6 vols., ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... awning; and, bound to one side of the wagon, were tall poles, from which floated a series of ghastly pictures—hideous raw-head-and-bloody-bone pictures! There were murders, executions, be-headings in German fashion; the criminal extended on a horrid sort of rack, and his head being chopped off by a grim executioner, with a sword, while a priest stood by in his long robes; there were houses on fire; drownings, miraculous escapes; there were tall, smirking ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... that he did or said any thing which was wholly unworthy of it. However, since it is not just that your royal highness should defend or own what possibly may be my error, I bring before you this accused Almanzor in the nature of a suspected criminal. By the suffrage of the most and best he already is acquitted; and by the sentence of some, condemned. But as I have no reason to stand to the award of my enemies, so neither dare I trust the partiality of my friends: I make my last appeal ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... King himself that the despatches had cast suspicion on him:* (* Historical Records 6 105.) "I have learned privately that in your despatches to the Secretary of State there is mention of Spanish America, which rendered me being the bearer, criminal with respect to my passport. 'Tis pity I had not known anything of this, for on finding myself under the necessity of stopping at the Isle of France, and learning the declaration of war, I should have destroyed the despatches; ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... banishment and long suffering. I would not be thought to be the advocate of cruelty; on the contrary, I warmly espouse the principle of producing a perfect contrition and change of sentiments and actions in the criminal, ere we send him into the presence of his God. To bring about this in an effectual manner, and be satisfied it springs from a thorough conviction of his error, we must not confine him in chains, with a priest praying at his side, until the moment he is launched into eternity. He should ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... are found in respect to these matters in the organic acts of the Territories, but an examination of them will show that it has been the invariable policy of Congress to place and keep their civil and criminal jurisdiction, with certain limited exceptions, in the hands of persons nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and that the general administration of justice should be as prescribed by Congressional enactment. Sometimes the power given to the Territorial ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... any of them should prove false to him, he hoped to be able to defend himself against them, and it would be more than foolish to trouble his mind with apprehensions until there should be some reason for them. But there was a danger to be considered, quite different from the criminal cupidity which might be provoked by companionship with the heap of gold, and this was the spirit of angry disappointment which might be looked for should no heap of gold be found. At the moment of such possible disappointment, the captain wanted to have with ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... was returning to London after the week-end, and his sense of the dramatic was grimly amused by the thought that his train would pass Jack's somewhere between Basingstoke and Brooklands. . . . He might almost be a criminal ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... had been ravaged from end to end by hostile and plundering armies. Rapine and destruction were, for near upon a third of the century, the common lot of the Germanic peoples from north to south and from east to west. Populations were as helpless as sheep before the brutal, criminal soldiery, recruited in many cases from the worst elements of every European country. The excesses of Mansfeld's mercenary army in the earlier stages of the war created widespread horror. But the defeat and death of Mansfeld brought no alleviation. The troops of Wallenstein ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... In addition also to his testimony that she and her husband were always quarrelling, it was proved by a respectable person that high words had passed between them on the evening previous to the day the criminal offence was committed, and that foolish, passionate expressions had escaped her about wishing to be rid of such a drunken wretch. This evidence, combined with the medical testimony, appeared so conclusive to the magistrates that spite of the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... soon underwent important changes and improvements. In the eighteenth century, in Naples, Vico transformed history into a new science. Filangeri contended with Montesquieu for the palm of legislative philosophy; and new light was thrown on criminal science by Mario Pagano. In Rome, letters and science flourished under the patronage of Benedict XIV., Clement XIV., and Pius VI., under whose auspices Quirico Visconti undertook his "Pio Clementine ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... of the middle-aged lawyers often hurried over to consult him in difficult cases. All of them could occasionally listen while he, praiser of a bygone time, recalled the great period of practice when he was the favorite criminal lawyer of the first families, defending their sons against the commonwealth which he always insisted was the greater criminal. The young men about town knew him and were ready to chat with him on street ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... youth, far from being inordinate or criminal, never exceeded the bounds of that decent jollity which an extraordinary pot, on extraordinary occasions, may be supposed to have produced in a club of sedate book-keepers, whose imaginations were neither ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... a good reason for it. Really, I am well enough. You will bring him, won't you? I do not wish to make any mistake in the matter. Before the man is really confined under a criminal charge of attempt to murder I would like to confront him here. There can be no objection ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon

... Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, have issued this my proclamation, warning all persons who shall connect themselves with any such enterprise or expedition that the penalties of the law denounced against such criminal conduct will be rigidly enforced; and I exhort all good citizens, as they regard our national character, as they respect our laws or the law of nations, as they value the blessings of peace and the welfare of their country, to discountenance and by all lawful means ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... (scanty they are and cold) as the doomed criminal awaits his executioner. Does she really love him? Or will that exquisite, that soulful nature call for a stronger mate, a ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if they were proceeding to commit some black and criminal deed! ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... he stood there looking down at his work, perhaps there was a little feeling of sorrow for the fate of his fellow man, coupled with a touch of shame at his own unmanly act in thus murdering his sleeping foe, criminal though he was, and richly deserving death. But he had scant time for reflection. The noise of men approaching was heard in the forest. Pomponio's friends would be here in an instant. He must go at once. He slipped away among the trees in the direction ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... The criminal persisted up to the day before his execution in asserting his innocence, and inveighing against the injustice of his trial, but the certainty of his fate, and the awful voice of religion, at length subdued him. He made an unreserved confession of his guilt, and became truly penitent; gave up to ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... about, examined the form of an ash-stand, swung his glasses almost with violence and declined either to smoke or to sit down. Vanderbank, perched aloft on the bench and awaiting developments, had a little the look of some prepossessing criminal who, in court, should have changed places with the judge. He was unlike many a man of marked good looks in that the effect of evening dress was not, with a perversity often observed in such cases, to over-emphasise ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... I, perhaps alone among the furious crowd, had a distinct suspicion of the assassin. No sooner had the news reached me, than with the specification of the theater of the crime there at once flashed upon me the intellectual vision of the criminal: the stranger with the dark beard and startled eyes stood confessed before me! I held my breath for a few moments, and then there came a tide of objections rushing over my mind, revealing the inadequacy of the grounds on which ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... reported at an early hour to the sheriff's office. The legal profession was represented in Ogalalla by several firms, criminal practice being their specialty; but fortunately Mike Sutton, an attorney of Dodge, had arrived in town the day before on a legal errand for another trail drover. Sutton was a frontier advocate, alike popular with the Texas element and ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... order to bring a heavier pressure to bear upon him, arraigned him before a Diet as a criminal. The following were the charges which he brought ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... a decree of nullity of marriage by proving certain physical disabilities on the part of the husband, which in no way affect her happiness, health, or self-respect, yet can only obtain the partial relief of separation if her husband be a drunkard, an adulterer, and a criminal—so long as she cannot additionally prove cruelty or desertion! It is also an injustice that divorce should be so expensive that only people with money or the very poor (by means of proceedings in forma ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... not even know where he had gone. During that time, however, I learned that my husband, who had been fearful of soiling his proud name by having it publicly joined with mine, was, in the sight of the law, a common criminal. I finally traced him to America, and five years after he deserted me I had the pleasure of confronting him with the facts which I had obtained. With passionate protestations of renewed love and ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... are good for fools, deaths good for the wise, let us find out such as are fit for those who are betwixt both. My imagination suggests to me one that is easy, and, since we must die, to be desired. The Roman tyrants thought they did, in a manner, give a criminal life when they gave him the choice of his death. But was not Theophrastus, that so delicate, so modest, and so wise a philosopher, compelled by reason, when he durst say ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... subterfuges. Some neglected to collect the increase, others who had received the added sum, returned it to the Treasury upon a variety of pretexts. Some endowed schools or libraries, and a minority received what the laws allowed them and upon an assertion of their right to receive it. Outside of the criminal classes there has but seldom been a more melancholy exhibition of the weakness of human nature. The members seemed not to realize that the wrong was in the votes for which those members were alone responsible who had sustained the bill, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... away," I muttered. I felt like a criminal. Sarakoff clasped the bag firmly under his free arm. We began to walk hurriedly away. Our manner was furtive. Once I looked back and saw Alberan talking, with excited gestures, to the detective. They were both looking in our direction. The impulse to run possessed ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... resembling the blasts of vast iron furnaces blowing all at one time; and I caught a glimpse of the figure of Hans lighted up by the fire; and all the feeling I had left was just what I imagine must be the feeling of an unhappy criminal doomed to be blown away alive from the mouth of a cannon, just before the trigger is pulled, and the flying limbs and rags of flesh and skin fill the quivering air ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... compile six volumes of "Celebrated Trials," etc., "from the earliest records to the year 1825." What a caprice of Fate that the young aspirant should, on the very threshold of his adult career, be thrown into these coulisses of criminal biography! That a taste already keen to search out the birds of prey that haunt the fringe of decorous society, should be immersed, as it were, in a stream of criminal records! Old songs of Denmark, the poems of Ab Gwilym ("worth half a dozen ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She must be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight. A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said that Tibby was quite bad. Might it really be best to ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... Lady Levison, forced to call that man husband. That he has been a wicked man, I have long known; but now I hear he is a criminal. I hear it, I say, but I can get the truth from none. I went to Lord Mount Severn; he declined to give me particulars. I heard that Mr. Carlyle would be in town to-day, and I resolved to come and ask ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... carried, as it were, in triumph by the men, and borne high in the air, everyone turned to look at her, and the suffering girl felt this rather as if she were some criminal being carried through the streets to exhibit her disgrace to the citizens. But when she found herself in the large rooms where, in one place men, and in another the most skilled of the women and girls were employed in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... those thoughts come others about moral retribution—"What is its purpose? Can it—can any punishment have any right purpose save the correction, or the annihilation, of the criminal? Can God, in this respect, be at once less merciful and less powerful than man? Is He so controlled by necessity that He is forced to bring into the world beings whom He knows to be incorrigible, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... he saw the flow of blood. "At the sight of the blood" says Augustin, "he drank in ruthlessness; no longer did he turn away, but fixed his gaze, and he became mad—and he knew no more.... He was fascinated by the criminal atrocity of this battle, and drunk ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... Revolutionary Question"; "The Principles of the Revolution"; and the "Publications of the People's Tribunal"—the three last appearing anonymously. All of them counsel the most infamous doctrines of criminal activity. In "Words Addressed to Students," the Russian youth are exhorted to leave the universities and go among the people. They are asked to follow the example of Stenka Razin, a robber chieftain who, in the time of Alexis, placed himself at the head of a popular insurrection.[F] ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... himself on the cushions, and pointed towards the Faubourg Saint-Honore; the carriage drove on. The weight of his fallen fortunes seemed suddenly to crush him; he could not foresee the consequences; he could not contemplate the future with the indifference of the hardened criminal who merely faces a contingency already familiar. God was still in his heart. "God," he murmured, not knowing what he said,—"God—God!" Behind the event that had overwhelmed him he saw the hand of God. The carriage rolled rapidly onward. Villefort, while turning ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... an end, forasmuch as that my lord the duke, leader of the embassy, hearing the Brandenburger's fierce voice, came in haste from the supper-board to restore peace; and as he led away the Junker it was plain to all that he was taking him sharply to task. It was, in truth, a criminal misdeed in one of the Imperial envoy to cast down his glove at a dance, where he was the guest of a peaceful city; and that the duke imposed no severe penance for it the Junker might thank the worshipful members ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... "reaction would be progress. Before 1850 the people of Sampaolo were prosperous, now they are miserably poor; were pious, now they are horribly irreligious; were governed by honest gentlemen, now they form part of a nation that is governed by its criminal classes." ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... Samuel Smiles out of Hannah More. The offence of Dreiser is that he has disdained this revelation and gone back to the Greeks. Lo, he reads poetry into "the appetite for women"—he rejects the Pauline doctrine that all love is below the diaphragm! He thinks of Ulysses, not as a mere heretic and criminal, but as a great artist. He sees the life of man, not as a simple theorem in Calvinism, but as a vast adventure, an enchantment, a mystery. It is no wonder that respectable ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... man's life is saved by a singular and very ancient law; it, however, happens but rarely. If the murdered leaves a widow with children, this widow may claim the criminal as her own, and he becomes her husband nominally, that is to say, he must hunt and provide for the subsistence ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible,—a political gladiator, ready for a "set-to" in any crowd,—he is beaten in his own chosen field, and stands to-day before the country as a convicted usurper, a political criminal, guilty of a bold and persistent attempt to possess himself of the legislative powers solemnly secured to Congress by the Constitution. No vindication could be more complete, no condemnation could be more absolute ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... Balkishen, the Dewan, or Chancellor of the Exchequer, is notoriously among the most corrupt of all, taking a large portion of the heavy balances due by contractors to get the rest remitted or misrepresented. There is no Court in the capital, criminal, civil, or fiscal, in which the cases are not tampered with by Court favourites, and divided according to their wishes, unless the President has occasion to interfere in behalf of guaranteed pensioners, or officers and sepoys of our army. On his appearance they commonly skulk ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... sun and the moon rise and set as usual upon the mightiest revolutions of empire and of worldly fortune that this planet ever beholds; and it is sometimes even a comfort to know that this will be the case. A great criminal, sentenced to an agonizing punishment, has derived a fortitude and a consolation from recollecting that the day would run its inevitable course—that a day after all was but a day—that the mighty wheel of alternate light and darkness must and would revolve—and that the evening star would ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... He was appointed and became the prey of political swindlers, spending the public moneys right regally until his accounts were overhauled, and he "Swartwouted" (to use a word coined at the time) to avoid a criminal prosecution. He remained abroad for many years, and I ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... a military official at Chiang-chiu also issued a proclamation to warn the people against poison, and giving the confession of the above-mentioned criminal with great particularity. The criminal is made to say that a few months ago he had been decoyed and sold to foreigners. In company with more than fifty others—he was conveyed by ship to Macao. There they were distributed among the foreign hongs, one to each hong. (Hong is pigeon English ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... me a sidelong glance, and I asked myself whether he might not all the same, be a criminal of the sneaking type who did not want to run any ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... not believe—he had been called so ineffectively as to be quite unconscious of the circumstance. At the conclusion of the inquiry, his comrades were so furiously incensed with the Welshman for his culpable—almost criminal—neglect, that they seemed strongly disposed to take summary vengeance upon him; and it needed the exertion of all my authority to protect the fellow from their violence, which broke out anew when at noon we went to dinner, and were ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... of some criminal. She must have been a terrible malefactor indeed if her crimes are in proportion ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, the National Birth-Rate Commission, and the Joint Select Committee (House of Lords) on Criminal Law Amendment Bills for recording various statements ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout

... judge on appeal the criminal cases tried by the Provincial courts; and shall take cognizance of and have original jurisdiction in all cases against the secretaries of the government, the chiefs of Provinces and towns, and the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... arrived, the elders, amongst whom was Morejne Calman, with his hands in his pockets and the stereotyped, honeyed smile on his lips, and Jankiel Kamionker, whose face looked very yellow, and whose eyes had the hunted look of a criminal. The last, but not least of them, was Isaak Todros, who glided in so swiftly and silently that scarcely anybody in ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... employment as premature wage-earners. Another declaration set forth that Trade Unions must be recognized, and their funds protected just as much as those "of any association formed for purposes not illegal." By no means were all Liberals in 1867 ready to distinguish between Trade Unions and criminal conspiracies. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... uneasily about the room. Some books attracted his notice on a table in the corner—four dirty, greasy volumes, with a slip of paper projecting from the leaves of one of them, and containing this inscription, "With Mr. Perry's respects." Julius opened the volume. It was the ghastly popular record of Criminal Trials in England, called the Newgate Calendar. Julius showed it ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... Mr Robertson, 'from what small knowledge I possess of the Human Boy, that matters will be made decidedly unpleasant for the criminal.' ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... thinning the Jewish population by emigration having failed, the congested Jewish masses continued to gasp for air in their Pale of Settlement. The slightest effort to penetrate beyond the Pale into the interior was treated as a criminal offence. In December, 1847, the Council of State engaged in a protracted and earnest discussion about the geographical point up to which the Jewish coachmen of Polotzk should be allowed, to drive the inmates of the local school of cadets on their annual trips to the Russian capital. ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... "Complaints are daily made," says the provincial assembly of Haute-Guyenne, "that there is no police in the country." The absentee seignior pays no attention to this matter; his judges and officials take good care not to operate gratuitously against an insolvent criminal, the result is that "his estates become the refuge of all the rascals of the area."[5330]—Every abuse thus carries with it a risk, both due to misplaced carelessness as well as excessive rigor, to relaxed ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... oxen. It was with Richard as it is with all who commit crimes. They are led on by the spirit of revenge, or some other strong motive. There is a kind of excitement which urges them on till the wicked deed is committed. Then the criminal excitement subsides; the hour of reflection comes, burdened also with the fear of discovery. To some extent, crime is its own punishment; at least, it is so with those who have ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... rescued from the merciless wave is unconscious of suffering. Why, then, do you break his [15] peace and cause him to suffer in coming to life? Because you wish to save him from death. Then, if a criminal is at peace, is he not to be pitied and brought back to life? Or, are you afraid to do this lest he suffer, trample on your pearls of thought, and turn on you and rend you? [20] Cowardice is selfishness. When one protects himself at his neighbor's cost, let him remember, "Whosoever ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... than to attribute them to the incantations of the sorcerers. It is moreover known that there are on the group many poisons furnished by trees, by shrubs and sea-weeds; and the kahuna-anaana understood perfectly these vegetable poisons. The many known examples of their criminal use inclines us to believe that these kahuna were rather poisoners than magicians. [Kalaipahoa, the poison-god, was believed to have been carved out of a very poisonous wood, a few chips of which would cause death ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... of the very rich and the very poor, the very dashing and the very criminal, not to mention the lately exploited very Bohemian, are made known to the awed high school girls of Augusta, Georgia, and Redwing, Minnesota, not only through the bepictured and entrancing spreads of the Sunday theatrical supplements but through the shocked and alarmful eyes of Mr. Rupert Hughes ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... me, as much to them as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give a little advice for nothing. You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way." Sometimes, after he had entered upon a criminal case, the conviction that his client was guilty would affect him with a sort of panic. On one occasion he turned suddenly to his associate and said: "Swett, the man is guilty; you defend him, I can't," ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... have uttered Mme. la Marquise de Mortaine's name here in Lyons, where every aristocrat was termed a traitor and sent without trial to the guillotine, was in itself an act of criminal folly, and yet—you may believe me, monsieur, or not—there was something within me just at that moment that literally compelled me to open my heart out to this stranger, whom I had so basely betrayed, and who requited my abominable ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways [Footnote: 32] of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your Colonies, and disturbs your government. These are—to change that spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes; to prosecute it as criminal; or to comply with it as necessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been started,—that of giving up the Colonies; but it met so slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... maintained imperturbable gravity. At intervals between the bursts of shouting, Mege's voice could still be heard. By some sudden transition he had come to the question of a Collectivist organisation of society such as he dreamt of, and he contrasted it with the criminal capitalist society of the present day, which alone, said he, could produce such scandals. And yielding more and more to his apostolic fervour, declaring that there could be no salvation apart from Collectivism, he shouted that the day of triumph would soon dawn. He awaited it with a smile ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... a hundred men. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blonde hair; Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous man was ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... fatal malady seizes the being whose untimely grave you have prepared, when she lies languid and exhausted before you, her dim eyes raised to heaven, and the damp of death upon her pallid brow, there you stand at her bedside like a condemned criminal, with the bitter feeling that your whole fortune could not save her; and the agonising thought wrings you, that all your efforts are powerless to impart even a moment's strength to the departing soul, or quicken her ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... he; and, when Rachel said she was, he asked her to listen now; and there was nothing to listen to. "The coast's as clear as the Criminal Court," explained this pleasant official. "A closed cab did it, with an officer on the box; and I'll call you another as soon ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... "The criminal mind is well equipped with explanations for use in time of stress," said Mr. Gubb. "Lesson Six of the Correspondence School of Deteckating warns the deteckative against explanations of murderers when confronted by the victim. I demand an autopsy ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... criminal," suggested Disco, as he hurried away, endeavouring to comfort himself with the thought that the man probably deserved punishment. "It's not the whippin' I think so much of," he added; "that is the only thing as will ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... have been praised and admired by the world and by posterity. On entering the city," Petrarch continues, "he inquired if I was there. I knew not whether he hoped for succour from me, or what I could do to serve him. In the process against him they accuse him of nothing criminal. They cannot impute to him having joined with bad men. All that they charge him with is an attempt to give freedom to the republic, and to make Rome the centre of its government. And is this a crime worthy of the wheel or the gibbet? A Roman citizen ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... Margaret Delacour, who now returned, and took her seat upon a sofa, with the solemnity of a person who was going to sit in judgment upon a criminal, "pray, sir, may I ask how long you have been ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... possess in it a valuable historical document for the illustration of contemporary customs. It offers in all points a curious parallel to Cellini's account of his own homicides and hair-breadth escapes. Moreover, it is confirmed in its minutest circumstances by the records of the criminal courts of Venice in the sixteenth century. This I can attest from recent examination of MSS. relating to the Signori di Notte and the Esecutori contro la Bestemmia, which are preserved among the Archives ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... that such a man as Menendez could fear such a man as Camber. True, I had seen the latter at a disadvantage, and I knew well enough that many a genius has been also a drunkard. But although I was prepared to find that Colin Camber possessed genius, I found it hard to believe that this was of a criminal type. That such a character could be the representative of some remote negro society was an idea too grotesque to be entertained for ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... seem idle, if not cruel and malicious, to wish to substitute one historical allegiance for another, when both are equally arbitrary, and the existing one is the more congenial to those born under it; but to feel this aggression to be criminal demands some degree of imagination and justice, and sectaries would not be ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... wandering in the mountains, accompanied only by a few individuals; that he had been refused provision, was in want of every thing, and, pursued and on the point of being surrounded by the troops sent against him from Toulon, Marseilles, Valence, and Grenoble, he must speedily expiate his rash and criminal enterprise. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... not as hard-hearted as he seemed, for he ceased blustering and shook Maurice's hand very heartily; nay, more, when they told their story, and Mr. Huntingdon frowned angrily on hearing Maurice had connived at the criminal's escape, he spoke up for Maurice. "You did not expect the young gentleman, sir, to put the handcuffs on his old pal; it is ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... synopsis of the letters as far as they belong to the relations of Egypt and Syria, with the addition of geographical and historical notes. In the Introduction Professor Petrie gives a harrowing account of the casual way in which the tablets were found and of the criminal carelessness with which these priceless records ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr

... traveller proceeded on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for a while about the village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be executed for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered respecting the name or residence of the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... arrived from Kailasa, bringing a letter from Darpasara, in which he had written, "O fool! should there be any pity for the violator of the harem? If the old king, my father, now in his dotage, was foolish enough to favour the criminal for the sake of his worthless daughter, you had no need of his permission, and ought not to have been influenced by him. Let that vile seducer be immediately put to death by torture, and his paramour be shut up in prison ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... the Festival of the Supreme Being. More laudable efforts of ambition were prize essays, in which Robespierre has the merit of taking the right side in important questions. He protested against the inhumanity of laws that inflicted civil infamy upon the innocent family of a convicted criminal. And he protested against the still more horrid cruelty which reduced unfortunate children born out of wedlock to something like the status of the mediaeval serf. Robespierre's compositions at this time do not rise above the ordinary level of declaiming mediocrity, but they promised a manhood of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... who speculate on the public misfortune, who seek to alter the laws and the decrees, who reveal our secrets to the foe and admit the Medes into our territory so that they may devastate it! I declare them both impious and criminal. Oh! almighty Zeus! see to it that the gods protect us, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... resumed, "When I think of the past, when I think of the ambitious projects which, in concert with Sarah, I founded on the youth and inexperience of the prince—how many events! by what degrees have I fallen into the state of criminal degradation in which I live! I, who had thought to effeminate this prince, and make him the docile instrument of the advancement of which I had dreamed! From preceptor I expected to become minister. And notwithstanding my ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... dialect, a chare is a narrow street or lane. At the local assizes some years since, one of the witnesses in a criminal trial swore that "he saw three men come out of the foot of a chare." The judge cautioned the jury not to pay any regard to the man's evidence, as he must be insane. A little explanation by the foreman, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... Birkin. 'He is the perfectly subjected being, existing almost like a criminal. And the women rush towards that, like a current of air towards ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... shock thereby which caused her death. Commenting on this, one of the judges bade him be reassured, inasmuch as he had, as if by compensation, saved the life of a young man who might live to be reformed. The young man was a criminal whose condemnation was regarded as certain at the hands of the jury before whom he was being arraigned, when tidings reached the court that Lunardi's balloon was in the air. On this so much confusion arose that the jury were unable to give due deliberation to the case, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... under a noble Gothic canopy, holding scales, not by the beam, but one in each hand; a beautiful idea, showing that the equality of the scales of Justice is not owing to natural laws, but to her own immediate weighing the opposed causes in her own hands. In one scale is an executioner beheading a criminal; in the other an angel crowning a man who seems (in Selvatico's plate) to have been working at a desk ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... punishment of the stocks be obsolete—or the stang—or the jougs—if the bowels of the people yearn after strange doctrine—if the parish has produced any good or great murderer, incendiary, or other criminal. In short, why might not the history of each of the twenty or thirty thousand parishes of Great Britain—we speak at random—be each a history of human nature, at once entertaining and instructive? How infinitely better such books than pamphlets on political economy, for example, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various

... for them, I would have gone to West Point with you, Bob. But, above all else in the world I enjoy pitting my wits against another's—enjoy unravelling mysteries that baffle others. To me there is no excitement equal to a man hunt. I suppose in a way it is an inheritance; my father was a great criminal lawyer, and his father before him. When Pinkerton organized the Secret Service division of the army in '61, I went with him, thinking I could follow my chosen profession and serve my country at the same time. Besides," ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... appear that any ill consequences resulted immediately from the criminal rashness of this sinner, so that she was encouraged to go to her husband, who, seduced by a fairer tempter, and one endeared to him by the tenderest ties, complied with her request to share the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... reminiscence, was one that was rather too ghastly to appeal to our own sense of humor. In the Turk's mind there still rankled the memory of Fowler's very unprofessional conduct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye: "Do you know that Turk, he was a right funny fellow too after all. Just as the boys were going to string up Fowler, says he, 'Boys, stop; one moment, gentlemen,—Mr. Fowler, good-by,' and he blew a ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... eyes from time to time towards heaven, her exceedingly pretty fingers, tipped with polished nails of rosy hue, writhing the while in preconcerted agonies—"Theodore, I am guilty before you—deeply guilty. I will say more—I am a criminal; but hear what I have to say. I am tortured by remorse; I have become a burden to myself; I can bear my position no longer. Ever so many times I have thought of addressing you, but I was afraid of your anger. But I have determined to break every tie with the past—puis, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... Monte-Leone produced great sensation in the numerous assemblage. The adventures of the Count and the report of his trial had been published in all the Parisian papers, and in the eyes of some he was a lucky criminal, and of others a victim and a martyr to his opinions, whom God alone had preserved. The women especially were interested in the hero of this judicial drama, on account of the exaggerated representations of his personal attractions. Received ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... one camp and the Mormons in another. A justice of the peace, in a statement to the governor, declared, "The Mormons are so numerous and so well armed [in Daviess and Caldwell counties] that the judicial power of the counties is wholly unable to execute any civil or criminal process within the limits of either of the said counties against a Mormon or Mormons, as they each and every one of them act in concert and outnumber the other citizens." Lee says that an order had been issued by the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... two-thirds of the active white men of those counties, and have the sympathy and countenance of a majority of the one-third. They are connected with similar combinations in other counties and States, and no doubt are part of a grand system of criminal associations pervading most of the Southern States. The members are bound to obedience and secrecy by oaths which they are taught to regard as of higher obligation than the lawful oaths ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... be seriously believed that a crowd, to all appearance peaceful, would commit such an act of aggression? Who would have been insane enough to expose a mass of unarmed people to such dire revenge, by a challenge as criminal as it was useless? The account according to which the pistol was fired by an officer of the Federal guard from the foot of the Place Vendome, thus giving the signal to those under his orders to ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... "if somebody'll prove it to me I might sleep better. Just at present I'm ready for anything truly criminal. There was a killing at the Club all right. I assumed the role of the defunct. Now I haven't any money; I've overdrawn my balance and my salary; Portlaw is bilious, peevish, unapproachable. If I asked ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... way of dreams, he now beheld himself gazing down upon a dying man, who lay stretched upon the ground, a bullet having passed through his body. He knew the man. It was Colonel King, the cattle rustler, who had carried on his criminal work disguised as Laramie Dave. There were other men standing about—armed men. The sheriff was there with his posse. At last, through the revelation and information furnished by Frank Merriwell, this cattle stealer had been ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... Portland, &c., at the time of the secret inquiry: when, if proof could have been brought against her, it certainly would have been done; and which acquittal, to the disgrace of all parties concerned, as well as to the justice of the nation in general, was not made public at the time. A common criminal is publicly condemned or acquitted. Her royal highness commanded me to have these letters published forthwith, saying, 'You may sell them for a great sum.' At first (for she had spoken to me before concerning this business), I thought ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and time men were imprisoned for debt in England. The law was brutal, and those who executed it were cruel. There was no discrimination between fraud and misfortune. The man who was unable to pay his debts was judged to be as criminal as the man who, though ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... discussion, had indulged himself in reflections upon my personal character as malicious as they were false. Now the only possible disproof of a libel is the proof that it is a libel,—that it is either untruthful, or malicious, or both; and, since a libel is both a civil injury and a criminal offence, the proof of its libellous character cannot be established without reflecting upon the personal character of the libeller. Hence Dr. Royce himself, by writing a libel, had self-evidently raised the question of his own personal character, ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... instances occurring respectively in 1915 and 1916, in the boll-weevil section of this State, moreover, lynching parties killed not only the guilty Negroes but also others who were innocent. In another instance the mob, after murdering the criminal and terribly beating and terrorizing many others not implicated in the crime, proceeded across the county and killed the mother and another relative of the accused. These bloody deeds had the effect of developing in the Negroes a feeling of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... which is the letting off a pigeon, bred at the gaol, fly from the gallery, which hastes directly home; an old custom, to give an early notice to the keeper and others, of the turning off or death of the criminal; and that of the executioner smoking his pipe at the top of the gallows, whose position of indifference betrays an unconcern that nothing can reconcile with the shocking spectacle, but that of use having rendered his wretched ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... nature's dictates they regard as grievances, not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their descendents and on future generations are often as great as those caused by crime, they do not think themselves in any degree criminal. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... defend him yourself!" said Miss Renner. Miss Holland turned and caught her in her arms. "I can't do that," she said. "I couldn't, anyhow, without being asked, and besides, he will need the most skillful criminal lawyer in New York to defend him. I should make a sorry ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... classmates. Shorts and the other two must be somewhere near for Dan had told him so. He turned to the left, walking toward "Jay's" resort, where with his knowledge of the three little freshmen's habits, he would probably find them. It was a nuisance to be followed about and guarded as if he were a criminal, yet he would go through anything rather than be absent ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... paddy-planting. The proclamation embodying this Act permitted the temporary use of municipal lands, the seed supplied to be repaid after the crop. It is said that some of the local native councils, misunderstanding the spirit of the proclamation, made its non-observance a criminal offence, and incarcerated many of the supposed offenders; but they were promptly released by ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... starvation, death, all are within no great distance of these beautiful resorts. Dark streets where thieves and outcasts slink away from the light of day like hunted animals; where one reads hunger and want in silent human faces; where men are met whose villanous expression only too plainly betrays their criminal nature. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... story were true, there was a new instance of the influence which Frank had acquired over his father. I had very indistinct ideas of speculation, but was used to regard it as something very hazardous, and almost criminal. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... bluffly, and led the way into a small hovel rather than parlour - and then haughtily seated himself at a table, on which were pen, ink, and paper, and, while I stood before him, began an interrogation, with the decided asperity of examining a detected criminal, of whom he was to draw up the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... officials who are with me have authority to arrest everybody in this place, yourselves included. Fortunately I am able to modify that. Kagig —that rascal beside you—is a well-known agitator. He is a criminal. His arrest and trial have been ordered on the charge, among other things, of stirring up discontent among the Armenian laborers on the railway work. These gipsies are all his agents. They are all under arrest. You yourselves will ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... of the many suggestions as to hush-money that were apparently circulated, engaged the best counsel possible, secured his most influential acquaintance as witnesses to his wife's character, and spent the terrible intervening period in confinement with her at Ilchester. He was well aware that the criminal law of England, as it then existed, made the lot of untried prisoners as hard, and the difficulty of proving their innocence as great, as possible; he knew also that in the seething disquiet of men's minds, brought ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... some states to racially mixed marriages contracted by soldiers. Twenty-seven states had some form of miscegenation law. The Army therefore did not assign to stations in those states soldiers who by reason of their mixed marriages might be subject to criminal penalties. See Memo, Chief, Classification and Standards Branch, DCSPER, for Planning Office, 28 Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, DCSPER to TAG, 4 Jun 54; both in DCSPER 291.2. For further discussion of the matter, see TAGO, Policy Paper, July 1954; New York Post, November ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... locomotive; goes to sleep in Paris and wakes up in the Seine-et-Oise. A safety lock I call him." Seeing a smile on Gaillard's face he added: "That's a saying in our business. Pinch a man, means arrest him, lock him up. The criminal police have another term. Vidoeq said to his man, 'You are served'; that's funnier, for it ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... debaucheries, but not the elegance which refines them: if his sentiments were low, the language in which they were clothed was meaner still: and that which makes the morality of the upper classes, and which no criminal is supposed to be hardy enough to reject; that religion which has no scoffers, that code which has no impugners, that honour among gentlemen, which constitutes the moving principle of the society in which they live, he seemed to imagine, even in its most fundamental laws, was an authority to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Criminal" :   tough, traitor, criminal maintenance, US Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, manslayer, bootlegger, conspirator, toughie, William H. Bonney, contrabandist, criminal offense, MacGregor, illegal, jailbird, peddler, recidivist, highjacker, scofflaw, mafioso, firebug, hijacker, outlaw, extortionist, rapist, desperate criminal, kidnaper, pusher, punk, hood, kidnapper, criminal congress, moll, desperado, gaolbird, highbinder, plotter, fugitive from justice, blackmailer, moon-curser, Billie the Kid, mobster, reprehensible, criminality, stealer, drug peddler, briber, gangster, guilty, probationer, suborner, James, gangster's moll, smuggler, violator, accessary, arsonist, drug dealer, war criminal, law offender, treasonist, jail bird, abductor, drug trafficker, lawbreaker, criminal negligence, murderer, strong-armer, snatcher, liquidator, extortioner, moon curser, machinator, Bonney, gun moll, runner, parolee, Robert MacGregor, racketeer, wrong, fugitive, principal, coconspirator, Rob Roy, hoodlum, incendiary, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory, repeater, thief, Criminal Intelligence Services of Canada, crime, moonshiner, felonious, thug, goon, Jesse James, raper, accessory



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com