Crime

How to spell crime

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crime

What does crime mean?

1. nounAn act that breaks the law and is punishable by the state.

Crime in a sentence

• The detective spent years investigating organised crime in the city.

• Shoplifting is a crime even when the item has little value.

Where does crime come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word arrived in English in the 1200s from Old French crime, which itself descended from the Latin crimen, meaning 'a charge, an accusation, or a fault'. That Latin noun was rooted in cernere, a verb meaning 'to decide, to sift, or to judge', so the earliest sense pictured the formal accusation brought before a court rather than the wrongful act itself. Over time the meaning shifted from the accusation to the offence that prompted it, giving us the modern idea of a punishable wrong against the law. The same cernere root lies behind related words such as 'discern' and 'certain', all carrying the idea of separating or deciding. The spelling stayed close to its Latin and French ancestors, which is why the silent final 'e' survives and why the word keeps its simple single 'm'.

How the word is built

• crim- (from Latin crimen: charge, offence)
• -e (silent ending from French)