recidivist means tending to fall back into prior habits, especially criminal habits. It carries an Arena rating of 1649, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, recidivist ranks #1,635 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,096 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,460 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,601 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
recidivist is pronounced /ɹɪˈsɪdɪvɪst/.
Why “recidivist” is a great word
One who habitually relapses into criminal behavior. From the French récidiviste, itself from the Latin recidīvus ("returning, recurring"), built on re- ("again") and cadere ("to fall"). Unlike "repeat offender," a neutral legal descriptor, or "relapser," a general term for falling back into illness or habit, "recidivist" carries the formal, clinical weight of a diagnosis. It is the silhouette against the same police floodlight, the resigned clank of the familiar cell door, and the weary sigh in a parole officer's file—a life measured not in progress, but in the grim, gravitational orbits of failure.
Etymology
From French récidiviste, from Latin recidīvus (“returning, recurring”). Compare recidivous, -ist. By surface analysis, recidive + -ist.
adj
- Tending to fall back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.
noun
- One who falls back into prior habits, especially criminal habits.e.g.“This specimen was of English parentage, was a professional burglar, a confirmed recidivist, and—since he habitually carried firearms—a potential homicide.” — 1914, R. Austin Freeman, chapter 2, in The Uttermost Farthing:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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