as in prohibited
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as in outlawed
to make or declare contrary to the law
wanted to criminalize an activity that the mountaineers had been engaging in for generations
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Recent Examples of criminalized
Pamela Colloff,
ProPublica,
24 Mar. 2026
Isaias Medina, an international lawyer and former Venezuelan diplomat who denounced his own government at the International Criminal Court, described Venezuela as a criminalized state dominated by narcotrafficking networks.
—
Solly Boussidan , Efrat Lachter,
FOXNews.com,
7 Dec. 2025
Nina Totenberg,
NPR,
30 June 2026
TaniHub, a case critics say criminalized standard market risk.
—
Chandra Asmara,
Fortune,
30 June 2026
Chicago would have been the largest city in the Northern Hemisphere without a bus hub, and Greyhound could have moved its Midwest hub to Indiana where reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare are criminalized.
—
Lena Guerrero Reynolds,
Chicago Tribune,
25 June 2026
The word also figured heavily in the Alien and Sedition Acts, a set of four 18th century laws that restricted citizenship, expanded the president’s authority to detain and deport foreigners, and criminalized dissenting speech.
—
Harmeet Kaur,
CNN Money,
3 June 2026
The investigation unveiled last fall shows the different ends of the spectrum in how sports can be turned and potentially criminalized.
—
Jacob Whitehead,
New York Times,
2 June 2026
Along with Jim Crow laws that criminalized Blackness, the loophole allowed for the legal re-enslavement of Black Americans to financially benefit the state.
—
Julia Bowling,
The Conversation,
29 May 2026
The bill criminalized seditious libel.
—
Encyclopedia Britannica,
26 May 2026
The deportation is particularly notable because Saab had become one of the most politically sensitive figures within Venezuela’s ruling structure, frequently portrayed by the Maduro regime as proof that Washington criminalized those helping the country circumvent sanctions.
—
Antonio María Delgado,
Miami Herald,
19 May 2026
Adjective
But first McCarty needed a sense of how many women were imprisoned at Mabel Bassett for crimes tied to their own abuse — a phenomenon that sentencing-reform advocates call criminalized survivorship.
—
Pamela Colloff,
ProPublica,
24 Mar. 2026
Isaias Medina, an international lawyer and former Venezuelan diplomat who denounced his own government at the International Criminal Court, described Venezuela as a criminalized state dominated by narcotrafficking networks.
—
Solly Boussidan , Efrat Lachter,
FOXNews.com,
7 Dec. 2025
Verb
Since then, a total of 25 states have criminalized or banned gender-affirming care for minors.
—
Nina Totenberg,
NPR,
30 June 2026
TaniHub, a case critics say criminalized standard market risk.
—
Chandra Asmara,
Fortune,
30 June 2026
Chicago would have been the largest city in the Northern Hemisphere without a bus hub, and Greyhound could have moved its Midwest hub to Indiana where reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare are criminalized.
—
Lena Guerrero Reynolds,
Chicago Tribune,
25 June 2026
The word also figured heavily in the Alien and Sedition Acts, a set of four 18th century laws that restricted citizenship, expanded the president’s authority to detain and deport foreigners, and criminalized dissenting speech.
—
Harmeet Kaur,
CNN Money,
3 June 2026
The investigation unveiled last fall shows the different ends of the spectrum in how sports can be turned and potentially criminalized.
—
Jacob Whitehead,
New York Times,
2 June 2026
Along with Jim Crow laws that criminalized Blackness, the loophole allowed for the legal re-enslavement of Black Americans to financially benefit the state.
—
Julia Bowling,
The Conversation,
29 May 2026
The bill criminalized seditious libel.
—
Encyclopedia Britannica,
26 May 2026
The deportation is particularly notable because Saab had become one of the most politically sensitive figures within Venezuela’s ruling structure, frequently portrayed by the Maduro regime as proof that Washington criminalized those helping the country circumvent sanctions.
—
Antonio María Delgado,
Miami Herald,
19 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for criminalized
Adjective
-
There is, however, room for questions about where the line between prohibited and acceptable political involvement will fall in practice.
-
The list of prohibited and restricted items, as found on the CBP website, includes alcohol, biological materials, firearms, food and produce such as fruits and vegetables, soil, wildlife, fish, and gold, among other items.
Verb
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Reaching that destination took a lot of sacrifice and organizing over the many decades since slavery was originally outlawed in this country.
-
Within a few years of Euromaidan, the Ukrainian government had outlawed Soviet symbols, including monuments to Lenin.
Adjective
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More recently, mathematicians have been able to adapt Erdős’ method to get better estimates of Ramsey numbers where the forbidden cliques differ vastly in size.
-
And thank God for that, because forbidden love is my favorite type of drama to watch on Love Island.
Verb
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When you're banned from a show — and if you guys know me, I'm banned from most of them.
-
Florida cities ramped up their enforcement after Tallahassee banned public camping statewide in 2024, telling local governments to get people off their streets or risk lawsuits.
Adjective
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Jailbreaking involves persuading a model to ignore its safety rules and generate disallowed content.
Adjective
-
The indictment also charges four current and former federal inmates accused of coordinating drops using contraband cellphones.
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Officials said Monday 15 people were taken to the hospital after residents of the Horizon Juvenile Center, which houses young offenders, armed themselves with contraband and makeshift knives as chaos erupted Sunday.
Adjective
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The roommate, Maria Ortiz, 60, was struggling against a barred window, screaming for help, when firefighters in a tower ladder truck cut the bars and pulled her out.
-
The motions of stellar streams contain clues to how our barred spiral galaxy evolved over billions of years, including through collisions with other galactic realms.
Cite this Entry
“Criminalized.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/criminalized. Accessed 4 Jul. 2026.
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