Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb Law To find or prove (someone) guilty of an offense or crime, especially by the verdict of a court.
  • intransitive verb To show or declare to be blameworthy; condemn.
  • intransitive verb To make aware of one's sinfulness or guilt.
  • intransitive verb To return a verdict of guilty in a court.
  • noun A person found or declared guilty of an offense or crime.
  • noun A person serving a sentence of imprisonment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To prove or find guilty of an offense charged; specifically, to determine or adjudge to be guilty after trial before a legal tribunal, as by the verdict of a jury or other legal decision: as, to convict the prisoner of felony.
  • To convince of wrong-doing or sin; bring (one) to the belief or consciousness that one has done wrong; awaken the conscience of.
  • To confute; prove or show to be false.
  • To show by proof or evidence.
  • Proved or found guilty; convicted.
  • Overcome; conquered.
  • noun A person proved or found guilty of an offense alleged against him; espeeially,one found guilty, after trial before a legal tribunal, by the verdict of a jury or other legal decision; hence, a person undergoing penal servitude; a convicted prisoner.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Proved or found guilty; convicted.
  • noun A person proved guilty of a crime alleged against him; one legally convicted or sentenced to punishment for some crime.
  • noun A criminal sentenced to penal servitude.
  • transitive verb To prove or find guilty of an offense or crime charged; to pronounce guilty, as by legal decision, or by one's conscience.
  • transitive verb obsolete To prove or show to be false; to confute; to refute.
  • transitive verb To demonstrate by proof or evidence; to prove.
  • transitive verb obsolete To defeat; to doom to destruction.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To find guilty
  • noun law A person convicted of a crime by a judicial body.
  • noun A person deported to a penal colony.
  • noun A common name for the sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), owing to its black and stripes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who has been convicted of a criminal offense
  • noun a person serving a sentence in a jail or prison
  • verb find or declare guilty

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English convicten, from Latin convincere, convict-; see convince.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman convicter, from Latin convictus, the past participle of convincere 'convict'

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Examples

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  • The convict was convicted anew.

    November 23, 2007