Recidivism

//rɪˈsɪdɪvɪzm̩// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Committing new offenses after a crime committed in the past. countable, uncountable

    "The increase in criminal activity was attributed to recidivism."

  2. 2
    habitual relapse into crime wordnet
  3. 3
    Chronic repetition of criminal or other antisocial behavior. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    Returning to a negative behavior after having stopped it for a period of time. broadly, countable, uncountable

    "alcohol(ic) recidivism"

Synonyms

All synonyms
about faceabout-faceamoralityapostasyatheismbacking

Example

More examples

"The amount will go up in the case of recidivism."

Etymology

From French récidivisme, from Latin recidīvus (“returning, recurring”). Compare recidivous, -ism. By surface analysis, recidive + -ism.

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