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recidivist

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L326464 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈsɪdɪvɪst/ / /ɹɪˈsɪdəvɪst/

adj

Etymology: From French récidiviste, from Latin recidīvus (“returning, recurring”). Compare recidivous, -ist. By surface analysis, recidive + -ist.

  1. Tending to fall back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.

    To return to Macbeth, I should like to note another psychological intuition of [William] Shakespeare’s, which is that women commit fewer crimes than men; but when they commit them they are more cruel and more obstinately recidivist than men. Lady Macbeth, for example, is more inhumanly ferocious than her husband.

    Court programs, a comparatively recent innovation in the rehabilitation of drunkenness offenders, originally stemmed from the interest of individual judges and magistrates concerned about the treadmill of waste among recidivist alcoholics.

noun

Etymology: From French récidiviste, from Latin recidīvus (“returning, recurring”). Compare recidivous, -ist. By surface analysis, recidive + -ist.

  1. One who falls back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.

    This specimen was of English parentage, was a professional burglar, a confirmed recidivist, and—since he habitually carried firearms—a potential homicide.

    Persistent recidivists are "accidentally" left on the next habitable world. This practice of abandoning criminals on other people's planets is a point of friction between the quarians and the systems they pass through. Captains rarely have another choice; with space and resources at a premium, supporting a non-productive prison population is not an option.