miscreant

adjective mis·cre·ant \ ˈmis-krē-ənt \

Definition of miscreant

1 :unbelieving, heretical

miscreant pagans

2 :depraved, villainous

miscreant behavior

miscreant gangs

Origin and Etymology of miscreant

Middle English miscreaunt, from Anglo-French mescreant, present participle of mescreire to disbelieve, from mes- + creire to believe, from Latin credere — more at creed

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First Known Use: 14th century

See Words from the same year

miscreant

noun

Definition of miscreant

1 :infidel, heretic

2 :one who behaves criminally or viciously

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Examples of miscreant in a Sentence

He supports tough penalties against corporate miscreants.
halt, vile miscreant, and face justice!

Recent Examples of miscreant from the Web

At the time, China was regarded as miscreant numero uno.

— robert hackett, Fortune, "Meet CrowdStrike’s Dmitri Alperovitch, Cyber Spy Hunter," 23 Aug. 2017
Boycotts must move beyond their narrow focus on punishing miscreants (be they neo-Nazis, O’Reilly, or Trump) toward more ambitious civic goals.

— jeet heer, New Republic, "The Left Can’t Rely on Boycotts Alone," 19 Aug. 2017
Sadly, given the failure of Republicans so far to do much to stand up to the miscreant in the Oval Office, this could well be one series where the bad guy gets away with his crimes.

— chicagotribune.com, "Trump is becoming unhinged at the twists and turns of Kremlingate," 25 July 2017
Volume two came out in April 2016, and the third arrives on Saturday, July 22—Dumpster Tapes has corralled 25 more bands, including lo-fi darlings Bunny, power-pop heartthrob Dan Rico, and postpunk miscreants No Men.

— leor galil, Chicago Reader, "Garage-rock label Randy Records drops debut LPs by Skip Church and Today’s Hits," 18 July 2017
This is the presitigitation that magically metamorphosizes black boys into thugs, black women into miscreants and black bodies into cadavers.

— michael harriot, The Root, "Dejuan Guillory Was Unarmed, Lying on The Ground When a Cop Shot Him in The Back, But No One Is Talking About It," 8 July 2017
The show, which lasted a season, was about a Navy officer on a World War II cargo ship who must contend with a vicious captain and a crew of miscreants.

— adam bernstein, Washington Post, "Roger Smith, a star of TV’s ‘77 Sunset Strip,’ dies at 84," 5 June 2017
Protesters in November 2015 (and since) demanded that universities institute penalties for these types of comments, like mandatory diversity training for miscreants.

— valerie strauss, Washington Post, "How today’s college students infantilize themselves," 27 May 2017
Miami police responding to the accident discovered the miscreant wasn’t an authorized driver of that ambulance and arrested him.

— david j. neal, miamiherald, "A Monday morning short story about a car crash and a stolen ambulance.," 15 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'miscreant.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.