criminology
noun
criminology is a noun meaning “The study of crime and criminals, especially their behaviour” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-R-I-M-I-N-O-L-O-G-Y and has 5 syllables, and it appears 1.0 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of criminology is criminologies.
What does criminology mean?
noun
- 1
The study of crime and criminals, especially their behaviour.
Criminology will help you understand the motivations of lawbreakers.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce criminology?
Criminology has 5 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-criminology.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of criminology
- criminologies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is criminology?
Criminology appears 1.0 times per million words in written English, the 28,918th 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).
Criminology in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the study of crime and criminals, especially their behaviour:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | criminologie |
| German | Kriminologie |
| Portuguese | criminologia |
| Spanish | criminología |
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 criminology come from?
From criminal + -logy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).