criminousness†; deviation from rectitude &c (improbity) 940 [Obs.];
sinfulness &c (vice) 945.
misconduct, misbehavior, misdoing, misdeed; malpractice, fault,
sin, error, transgression; dereliction, delinquency; indiscretion,
lapse, slip, trip, faux pas [Fr.], peccadillo; flaw, blot, omission;
failing, failure; break, bad break! [U.S.], capital crime, delictum
[Lat.].
offense, trespass; misdemeanor, misfeasance, misprision;
malefaction, malfeasance, malversation; crime, felony.
enormity, atrocity, outrage; deadly sin, mortal sin; deed without
a name [Macbeth].
corpus delicti.
Adj. guilty, to blame, culpable, peccable†, in fault, at fault,
censurable, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, illaudable†;
weighed in the balance and found wanting; exceptionable.
Adv. in flagrante delicto [Lat.]; red-handed, in the very act, with
one's hand in the cookie jar.
Phr. cui prodest scelus in fecit [Lat.] [Seneca]; culpam paena premit
comes [Lat.] [Horace]; O would the deed were good! [Richard II];
responsibility prevents crimes se judice nemo nocens absolvitur [Lat.]
[Juvenal]; so many laws argues so many sins [Paradise Lost].