Etymograph

English

crime

Crime comes from Middle English cryme, from Old French crime, from Latin crīmen.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcrīmen‘charge, crime’
  2. Old Frenchc. 842–1400crime
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cryme‘crime’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1590crime

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcrīmen‘charge, crime’
  2. Old Frenchc. 842–1400crime
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cryme‘crime’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1590crime

Earliest quotation: 1590, Edmund Spenser, Book I, Canto IX: “the tree of life, the crime of our first…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *krey- ‘sieve’

certain, secretary, secret, crisis, discrimination, discretion, critic, critique, discrete, discern, discreet, riddle, discriminate, criterion, hypocrite, endocrine, excretion, excrement, certitude, excrete, incriminate, ridder, incrimination, criterium, 47 more

through Proto-Italic *kreimən

criminality, 3 more

through Latin crīmen ‘a crime, fault, offense’

criminal, recrimination, 4 more

Today it means

noun A specific act committed in violation of the law, especially criminal law.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin crīmen / crime

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