the.com/criminal

means A person who has committed an act that the law defines as a crime.

from From Latin crimen, meaning 'accusation' or 'charge' — the thing alleged against you before guilt was ever decided. That became Late Latin criminalis, 'relating to an accusation,' and passed through French into English by the 14th-15th century. The telling detail: the root word originally pointed at the charge itself, not the deed — a reminder that 'criminal' first described a legal position you'd been put in, before it hardened into a label for what you supposedly were.