Library / English Dictionary

OFFENDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who transgresses moral or civil law

Synonyms:

offender; wrongdoer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

bad person (a person who does harm to others)

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

war criminal (an offender who violates international law during times of war)

supplanter; usurper (one who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another)

evildoer; sinner (a person who sins (without repenting))

pettifogger; shyster (a person (especially a lawyer or politician) who uses unscrupulous or unethical methods)

shark (a person who is ruthless and greedy and dishonest)

miscreant; reprobate (a person without moral scruples)

backslider; recidivist; reversionist (someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior)

principal ((criminal law) any person involved in a criminal offense, regardless of whether the person profits from such involvement)

fancy man; pandar; pander; panderer; pimp; ponce; procurer (someone who procures customers for whores (in England they call a pimp a ponce))

culprit; perpetrator (someone who perpetrates wrongdoing)

no-show; nonattender; truant (someone who shirks duty)

molester (someone who subjects others to unwanted or improper sexual activities)

malfeasant (one guilty of malfeasance)

transgressor (someone who transgresses; someone who violates a law or command)

ganef; ganof; gonif; goniff ((Yiddish) a thief or dishonest person or scoundrel (often used as a general term of abuse))

defector; deserter (a person who abandons their duty (as on a military post))

delinquent; juvenile delinquent (a young offender)

beguiler; cheat; cheater; deceiver; slicker; trickster (someone who leads you to believe something that is not true)

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

barrater; barrator (someone guilty of barratry)

aggressor; assailant; assaulter; attacker (someone who attacks)

abuser; maltreater (someone who abuses)

Derivation:

offend (act in disregard of laws, rules, contracts, or promises)

Credits

 Context examples: 

But my aunt, suddenly descrying among them the young malefactor who was the donkey's guardian, and who was one of the most inveterate offenders against her, though hardly in his teens, rushed out to the scene of action, pounced upon him, captured him, dragged him, with his jacket over his head, and his heels grinding the ground, into the garden, and, calling upon Janet to fetch the constables and justices, that he might be taken, tried, and executed on the spot, held him at bay there.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)