Decriminalize

verb

verb ·5 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To change the laws so something is no longer a crime. British, English, Oxford, US, transitive

    "The march to decriminalize drugs moved further across the nation on Tuesday despite continued federal prohibition."

  2. 2
    make legal wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
legalizelegalizedecriminaliselegaliselegitimatelegitimatise

Example

More examples

"The march to decriminalize drugs moved further across the nation on Tuesday despite continued federal prohibition."

Etymology

Back-formation from decriminalization, equivalent to de- + criminalize.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.