MALEFACTOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does malefactor mean? 

• MALEFACTOR (noun)
  The noun MALEFACTOR has 1 sense:

1. someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime

  Familiarity information: MALEFACTOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MALEFACTOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw

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

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

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

arsonist; firebug; incendiary (a criminal who illegally sets fire to property)

law offender; lawbreaker; violator (someone who violates the law)

traitor; treasonist (someone who betrays his country by committing treason)

stealer; thief (a criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it)

contrabandist; moon-curser; moon curser; runner; smuggler (someone who imports or exports without paying duties)

scofflaw (one who habitually ignores the law and does not answer court summonses)

habitual criminal; recidivist; repeater (someone who is repeatedly arrested for criminal behavior (especially for the same criminal behavior))

raper; rapist (someone who forces another to have sexual intercourse)

racketeer (someone who commits crimes for profit (especially one who obtains money by fraud or extortion))

drug dealer; drug peddler; drug trafficker; peddler; pusher (an unlicensed dealer in illegal drugs)

parolee; probationer (someone released on probation or on parole)

liquidator; manslayer; murderer (a criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being))

gangster's moll; gun moll; moll (the girlfriend of a gangster)

mafioso (a member of the Mafia crime syndicate in the United States)

abductor; kidnaper; kidnapper; snatcher (someone who unlawfully seizes and detains a victim (usually for ransom))

gaolbird; jail bird; jailbird (a criminal who has been jailed repeatedly)

goon; hood; hoodlum; punk; strong-armer; thug; tough; toughie (an aggressive and violent young criminal)

highjacker; hijacker (someone who uses force to take over a vehicle (especially an airplane) in order to reach an alternative destination)

highbinder (a corrupt politician)

gangster; mobster (a criminal who is a member of gang)

fugitive; fugitive from justice (someone who is sought by law officers; someone trying to elude justice)

desperado; desperate criminal (a bold outlaw (especially on the American frontier))

coconspirator; conspirator; machinator; plotter (a member of a conspiracy)

briber; suborner (someone who pays (or otherwise incites) you to commit a wrongful act)

bootlegger; moonshiner (someone who makes or sells illegal liquor)

blackmailer; extortioner; extortionist (a criminal who extorts money from someone by threatening to expose embarrassing information about them)

accessary; accessory (someone who helps another person commit a crime)

Instance hyponyms:

Billie the Kid; Bonney; William H. Bonney (United States outlaw who was said to have killed 21 men (1859-1881))

James; Jesse James (United States outlaw who fought as a Confederate soldier and later led a band of outlaws that robbed trains and banks in the West until he was murdered by a member of his own gang (1847-1882))

MacGregor; Rob Roy; Robert MacGregor (Scottish clan leader and outlaw who was the subject of a 1817 novel by Sir Walter Scott (1671-1734))

 Context examples 

He looked at Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead malefactor stretched upon the carpet.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The malefactor was fixed in a chair upon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and his head cut off at one blow, with a sword of about forty feet long.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer.

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

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)

Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks and take your post at the laboratory door.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)