criminal law
noun
Simple meaning
The body of law dealing with crimes and their punishment.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
krimuhnuhllawSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɹɪmənəlˈlɔ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
law
The body of law dealing with crimes and their punishment
law
The area of law pertaining to crime and punishment.
law
A specific statute, ordinance, regulation, or other source of law that deems an action to be a crime.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The body of law dealing with crimes and their punishment
Used this way, criminal law is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.