criminally

criminal (ˈkrɪmɪn^əl)

—n
1.	a person charged with and convicted of crime
2.	a person who commits crimes for a living

—*adj*
3.	of, involving, or guilty of crime
4.	(prenominal) of or relating to crime or its punishment: criminal court; criminal lawyer
5.	informal senseless or deplorable: a criminal waste of money

[C15: from Late Latin crīminālis; see crime, -al¹]

'criminally

—*adv*

criminal (ˈkrɪmɪn^əl)

—n
1.	a person charged with and convicted of crime
2.	a person who commits crimes for a living

—*adj*
3.	of, involving, or guilty of crime
4.	(prenominal) of or relating to crime or its punishment: criminal court; criminal lawyer
5.	informal senseless or deplorable: a criminal waste of money

[C15: from Late Latin crīminālis; see crime, -al¹]

'criminally

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

criminal

early 15c. (adj.), from Fr. criminel (11c.), from L. criminalis, from L. crimen (gen. criminis); see crime, preserving the Latin -n-. As a noun, from 1620s. Criminal law (or criminal justice) distinguished from civil in English at least since late 15c.

Matching Quote

"And what was the theory at the bottom of all these astounding proceedings? So far as it can be reduced to comprehensible terms it was much less a theory than a fear—a shivering, idiotic, discreditable fear of a mere banshee—an overpowering, paralyzing dread that some extra-eloquent Red, permitted to emit his balderdash unwhipped, might eventually convert a couple of courageous men, and that the courageous men, filled with indignation against the plutocracy, might take to the highroad, burn down a nail-factory or two, and slit the throat of some virtuous profiteer. In order to lay his fear, in order to ease the jangled nerves of the American successors to the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns, all the constitutional guarantees of the citizen were suspended, the statute-books were burdened with laws that surpass anything heard of in the Austria of Maria Theresa, the country was handed over to a frenzied mob of detectives, informers and agents provocateursand the Reds departed laughing loudly, and were hailed by the Bolsheviki as innocents escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane."

-H.L. Mencken

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