Library / English Dictionary

CONVICT

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person serving a sentence in a jail or prison

Synonyms:

con; convict; inmate; yard bird; yardbird

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("convict" is a kind of...):

captive; prisoner (a person who is confined; especially a prisoner of war)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "convict"):

lifer (a prisoner serving a term of life imprisonment)

trusty (a convict who is considered trustworthy and granted special privileges)

Derivation:

convict (find or declare guilty)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who has been convicted of a criminal offense

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("convict" is a kind of...):

offender; wrongdoer (a person who transgresses moral or civil law)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "convict"):

first offender (someone convicted for the first time)

sex offender (someone who has been convicted of a sex crime)

Derivation:

convict (find or declare guilty)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Find or declare guilty

Example:

The man was convicted of fraud and sentenced

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "convict" is one way to...):

judge; label; pronounce (pronounce judgment on)

"Convict" entails doing...:

evaluate; judge; pass judgment (form a critical opinion of)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "convict"):

reconvict (convict anew)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody of something

Antonym:

acquit (pronounce not guilty of criminal charges)

Derivation:

convict (a person serving a sentence in a jail or prison)

convict (a person who has been convicted of a criminal offense)

conviction ((criminal law) a final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I had no fear, therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be brought forward strong enough to convict her.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I took Mr. Dick with me, because, acutely sensitive to my aunt's reverses, and sincerely believing that no galley-slave or convict worked as I did, he had begun to fret and worry himself out of spirits and appetite, as having nothing useful to do.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed ‘Moriarty.’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Eight of us, five convicts and three sailors, said that we would not see it done.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As Armitage it was that I entered a London banking house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking my country’s laws, and was sentenced to transportation.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was the year ’55 when the Crimean war was at its height, and the old convict ships had been largely used as transports in the Black Sea.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When he saw the convict approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found him with a match-box in his hand seated beside an open powder barrel, which was one of a hundred carried on board, and swearing that he would blow all hands up if he were in any way molested.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The case might have been dealt leniently with, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago than now, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felon with thirty-seven other convicts in ’tween-decks of the barque Gloria Scott, bound for Australia.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)