felony
/ˈfɛləni/noun
felony is a noun meaning “A serious criminal offense, which, under United States federal law, is punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than one year or by the death…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-E-L-O-N-Y and has 3 syllables, and it appears 5.9 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of felony is felonies.
What does felony mean?
noun
- 1
USA serious criminal offense, which, under United States federal law, is punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than one year or by the death penalty in the most serious offenses.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce felony?
- /ˈfɛləni/
Felony has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-felony.wav, En-us-felony.oga, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of felony
- felonies plural
- fellonie
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is felony?
Felony appears 5.9 times per million words in written English, the 10,028th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Felony in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a serious criminal offense:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | crime |
| German | Verbrechen, schwere Straftat, Schwerverbrechen, Schwerstverbrechen, Kapitalverbrechen |
| Portuguese | crime grave |
| Spanish | crimen, delito, felonía |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does felony come from?
From Middle English felony, felonie, from Old French felonie (“evil, immoral deed”), from felon (“evildoer”). Ultimately of Proto-Germanic origin. More at felon. By surface analysis, felon + -y.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).