prosecution

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

• noun The act of prosecuting.
• noun The institution and conduct of a legal proceeding.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A following after; a pursuing; pursuit.
• noun The act or process of prosecuting, or pursuing with the object of obtaining or accomplishing something; pursuit by endeavor of body or mind; the carrying on or following up of any matter in hand: as, the prosecution of a scheme or undertaking; the prosecution of war or of commerce; the prosecution of a work, argument, or inquiry.
• noun The institution and carrying on of a suit in a court of law or equity to obtain some right or to redress and punish some wrong: as, the prosecution of a claim in chancery.
• noun The institution and continuance of a criminal suit; the process of exhibiting formal charges or accusations before a legal tribunal and the pressing of them: as, prosecutions by the crown or by the state.
• noun The party by whom proceedings are instituted: as, such a course was adopted by the prosecution.
• noun See the adjectives.

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

• noun The act or process of prosecuting, or of endeavoring to gain or accomplish something; pursuit by efforts of body or mind
• noun The institution and carrying on of a suit in a court of law or equity, to obtain some right, or to redress and punish some wrong; the carrying on of a judicial proceeding in behalf of a complaining party, as distinguished from defense.
• noun The institution, or commencement, and continuance of a criminal suit; the process of exhibiting formal charges against an offender before a legal tribunal, and pursuing them to final judgment on behalf of the state or government, as by indictment or information.
• noun The party by whom criminal proceedings are instituted.

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

• noun The act of prosecuting a scheme or endeavor.
• noun law The institution of legal proceedings (particularly criminal) against a person.
• noun law The prosecuting party.

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

• noun the lawyers acting for the state to put the case against the defendant
• noun the continuance of something begun with a view to its completion
• noun the institution and conduct of legal proceedings against a defendant for criminal behavior