criminal

Forms

criminal m or f (masculine and feminine plural criminales)^[1] Old Spanish also had creminal, recorded in 1394.^[2][3] Documents from the Americas of the 16th century write creminal and cleminal.^[4]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Late Latin criminālis (“of crime”).^[5][1][2] The CDH and the Tentative Dictionary have it first in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[6][3] Corominas lists Berceo, and the BDELC dates it to 1220–1250.^[2][7] The same Latin word is Portuguese criminal, Galician criminal, French criminel, Italian criminale and Romanian criminal.^[1]

The Late Latin adjective is formed with -ālis on crīmen (“charge, accusation; crime”), the source of crimen.^[1][2] The OLD considers the origin of the noun doubtful, perhaps the root of cernō (“to sift, decide”) with the suffix -men.^[8] Wiktionary reconstructs *kréymn̥, from *krey- (“to sieve”).^[1] The DHLF explains the sense as “a judicial decision”, then the charge and the guilty act itself.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) a prayer recalls that God saved Saint Susanna del falso criminal “from the false charge”.^[6][10] Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo (c. 1230) speaks of pecado criminal “a criminal sin”, and the Vidal Mayor (c. 1250) of every lawsuit que non sea criminal.^[10][6]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged to law from the start: Nebrija gave causa criminal and abogado en causa criminal.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 explained it as what pertains to crime, with causa criminal and juez de causas criminales, and the Diccionario de Autoridades (1729) quoted the Recopilación on criminal cases.^[12][13] The Academy added the sense “who has committed a crime” in 1884.^[14] In Mexico in 1590 a viceroy was criminal en el castigar los delitos, that is, severe in punishing crimes.^[4] Today it is also a noun, “a criminal”.^[5][1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – del falso criminal in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[6]
• c. 1230 – pecado criminal in Berceo.^[10][2]
• c. 1250 – a pleito criminal in the Vidal Mayor, the first record without a later copy.^[6]
• 1394 – the form creminal.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's dictionary renders criminal cosa de crimen with Latin criminalis.^[15]
• 1534 – first record from the Americas, causas creminales in Nicaragua.^[4]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades enters it.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy adds “who has committed a crime”.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to crime (crimen).^[5][1]
2. That involves a crime: una conducta criminal.^[5]
3. Of a law, institution or action, intended to prosecute and punish crimes: el derecho criminal.^[5]
4. Who has committed or tried to commit a crime.^[5]

Noun

1. A criminal, a person who has committed a crime: La policía detuvo a los criminales.^[5][1]

Word family

• criminalidad
• criminalista

Related words

• crimen
• criminoso
• incriminar
• recriminar
• Latin crīmen

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 243
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 153
4. ^ a b c Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. cleminal
5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. criminal
6. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. criminal
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. crimen
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. crīmen
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. crime
10. ^ a b c Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 814
11. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. criminal
12. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 533
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 660
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 306
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 321