Definition
Criminal carries two distinct legal meanings that must be distinguished by context.
1. AS AN ADJECTIVE: Of, relating to, or having the character of crime. When used to modify a noun — criminal law, criminal act, criminal intent, criminal proceeding — the term signals that the subject falls within the domain of public law governing offenses against the state or society, as distinct from civil law governing private disputes. A criminal act is one that the law defines as an offense subject to punishment. A criminal proceeding is one prosecuted by the state for the purpose of punishing the offender.
2. AS A NOUN: A person who has committed a crime; one who has been found guilty of a felony or misdemeanor, or, in some uses, one who has merely been charged with such an offense. Context governs whether the label refers to a convicted person or a person under accusation.
The adjective sense is the more technically precise and frequently appearing usage in legal texts. The noun sense is older and carries moral weight beyond its legal content.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Against the law; forbidden by law. Guilty of breaking the law. Of or relating to crime or penal law. Abhorrent or very undesirable.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Guilty of crime or sin. Involving a crime; of the nature of a crime. Relating to crime, as opposed to civil.
The ordinary-language definitions are broader in two directions: they shade toward moral condemnation ("sin," "abhorrent") that the legal definition does not require, and the modern colloquial use of "criminal" to mean simply undesirable or outrageous has no legal weight whatsoever. A researcher reading historical legal texts should note that "criminal" in older sources sometimes imports a moral judgment fused with a legal one; that fusion does not survive into modern doctrine. An act can be criminal in the legal sense without being morally condemned, and a morally condemned act is not thereby criminal in law.
Common Confusion
CRIMINAL VS. CIVIL
The foundational distinction in Anglo-American law runs between criminal and civil proceedings. Criminal proceedings are initiated by the state, seek punishment, require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and carry consequences including imprisonment and fines payable to the government. Civil proceedings are initiated by private parties, seek remedies such as damages or injunctions, and apply a preponderance of the evidence standard. The same underlying conduct can give rise to both. Historical sources frequently describe this divide in the adjective sense — "criminal" versus "civil" jurisdiction, evidence, liability — and the distinction is essential for navigating corpus materials correctly.
Why It Matters in Research
The term "criminal" is one of the most pervasive adjectives in the legal corpus, and its power lies in what it modifies. A researcher should treat it as a flag pointing to a separate doctrinal universe from civil law: different burdens of proof, different procedural protections, different theories of liability, and different consequences.
Several navigational points deserve attention.
First, the adjective-noun distinction affects how historical sources use the term. Older dictionaries and treatises tend to define "criminal" primarily as an adjective, relegating the noun sense to secondary status or treating it as self-evident. This reflects a drafting convention: legal texts referred to the accused, the defendant, or the convicted rather than reaching for "criminal" as a noun-label. Modern usage is less disciplined.
Second, the boundary of what qualifies as criminal rather than civil or regulatory has shifted substantially over time. Conduct treated as a tort in one era may be criminalized by statute in another; corporate criminal liability, largely undeveloped before the twentieth century, is now an active and complex doctrinal field. Researchers working across time periods should not assume that the criminal-versus-civil categorization of a given act is stable.
Third, the Rapalje & Lawrence entry signals an important historical usage: "crime" was sometimes treated as synonymous with "misdemeanor" in early American cases, which affects how "criminal" is used as a modifier in those sources. A criminal offense in an 1830s Georgia or Wisconsin case may be narrower in scope than the same phrase in a modern federal context.
Fourth, readers of Black's 2nd Edition will find "criminal action" defined in procedural terms drawn from state codes — the California and North Carolina formulations quoted in the source material represent codified distinctions that defined criminal action by reference to state prosecution and public offense. These jurisdictionally specific definitions should not be read as universal.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five shelf sources are in close agreement on the adjective definition and offer little variation worth flagging as a point of genuine doctrinal divergence.
Black's 1st Edition offers the most complete entry, capturing both the adjective sense (pertaining to crime, connected with penal justice) and the noun sense (a person guilty of a felony or misdemeanor). This dual coverage is the most useful formulation for research purposes.
Bouvier's and Burrill's definitions are nearly identical: "relating to crime" and "having the character of crime." Burrill traces the term to the Latin criminalis, from crimen, a note worth retaining because it signals that historical civil-law sources (and translated Roman or canon law materials) use the same root and the same conceptual frame.
Rapalje & Lawrence, characteristically, subordinates the definition itself in favor of case citations. The entries under "crime" — including the observation that crime is sometimes treated as synonymous with misdemeanor — are the useful material here, with the cases indicating jurisdictional variation in how broadly or narrowly "criminal" was understood in early American courts.
Black's 2nd Edition focuses on the procedural meaning of "criminal action," drawing on state code definitions. This is a practical, adjective-derived use: a criminal action is defined by who brings it (the state), why (to punish a public offense), and against whom (a person charged). The 2nd Edition's emphasis on the action rather than the actor or the characterization of conduct reflects the procedural orientation of that edition generally.
None of the historical sources adequately addresses corporate criminal liability, the criminalization of regulatory violations, or the use of "criminal" to describe intent (mens rea) independently of an act. Researchers working in these areas must supplement the shelf sources with modern doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
What constitutes a criminal offense is defined by statute in each jurisdiction, and the criminal-versus-civil line varies across state and federal law. The federal system and many states distinguish felonies, misdemeanors, and infractions within the criminal category, and some conduct treated as criminal in one jurisdiction is a civil infraction in another. Historical state-code definitions of "criminal action" — such as those from California and North Carolina in Black's 2nd Edition — should not be generalized.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Criminal Law — Corporate Criminal Liability (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Criminal Coercion (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Criminal Trespass (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)