Word.ws English Dictionary

malum prohibitum

malum prohibitum noun: an action that is not inherently evil, but is nevertheless illegal only because prohibited, as opposed to malum in se. A malum prohibitum offense is something that is wrong only because a statute makes it so, or by consensus that society agrees to prohibit the act, and is typically regulatory in nature and often result in no direct injury or danger to the person, entity, or property but only merely create the danger or probability of it which the statute attempts to minimize. Used to develop consensual crimes.

Noun

malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita)

  1. An action that is not inherently evil, but is nevertheless illegal only because prohibited, as opposed to malum in se. A malum prohibitum offense is something that is wrong only because a statute makes it so, or by consensus that society agrees to prohibit the act, and is typically regulatory in nature and often result in no direct injury or danger to the person, entity, or property but only merely create the danger or probability of it which the statute attempts to minimize. Used to develop consensual crimes.

Forms of malum prohibitum

pluralmala prohibita

Origin of malum prohibitum

From Latin directly. Literally translated as "wrong because prohibited", or "bad because against the law".

Questions about malum prohibitum

What does malum prohibitum mean?
Malum prohibitum means an action that is not inherently evil, but is nevertheless illegal only because prohibited, as opposed to malum in se. A malum prohibitum offense is something that is wrong only because a statute makes it so, or by consensus that society agrees to prohibit the act, and is typically regulatory in nature and often result in no direct injury or danger to the person, entity, or property but only merely create the danger or probability of it which the statute attempts to minimize. Used to develop consensual crimes.
What part of speech is malum prohibitum?
Malum prohibitum is a noun.
What is the plural of malum prohibitum?
The plural of malum prohibitum is mala prohibita.

Words near malum prohibitum in the dictionary

  1. Maluku
  2. Maluku Islands
  3. Malukus
  4. malum
  5. malum in se
  6. malum prohibitum
  7. malumi
  8. malumis
  9. malums
  10. Malungeon
  11. Malungeons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: malum prohibitum (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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