Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Liable to backslide to a former state.

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

  • adjective Tending or liable to backslide or relapse to a former condition or habit.

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

  • adjective Prone to relapse into immoral or antisocial behavior.
  • adjective Recurring (of a disease or another medical problem).

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin recidīvus ("returning, recurring"), from recidō ("fall back")

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Examples

  • Now, specifically how that is structured -- I mean, what the President has said is that he would like to see it structured narrowly enough so that it does target the 9 percent of recidivous* criminals who commit 70 percent of the violent crimes.

    Press Briefing By Dee Dee Myers ITY National Archives 1994

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