Word.ws English Dictionary

criminalise

criminalise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of criminalize.

Meaning of criminalize

Verb

criminalize (third-person singular simple present criminalizes, present participle criminalizing, simple past and past participle criminalized)

  1. (transitive) To make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban.
    • "Ag-gag laws criminalize undercover investigations by prohibiting one or more of three types of behavior: trespass, recording of videos, and failure to submit a video to law enforcement."2015, Gregg Barak, editor, The Routledge International Handbook of the Crimes of the Powerful
  2. (transitive) To treat as a criminal.

Antonyms of criminalise

Forms of criminalise

third-person singular presentcriminalises
present participlecriminalising
past participlecriminalised
pastcriminalised

Origin of criminalise

From criminal + -ise.

Words formed from criminalise

Questions about criminalise

What is criminalise the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of?
Criminalise is the non-Oxford British English standard spelling of criminalize.

Words near criminalise in the dictionary

  1. criminalese
  2. criminaless
  3. criminalesses
  4. criminalisation
  5. criminalisations
  6. criminalise
  7. criminalised
  8. criminalises
  9. criminalish
  10. criminalising
  11. criminalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: criminalise (page history and authors); criminalize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “criminalise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/criminalise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.