Perps

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals suspected or charged with committing a crime; components used in a performance or artistic presentation; people who take part in a particular activity or event
2. Persons believed to have engaged in illegal acts; elements involved in theatrical or staged acts; participants in a certain undertaking or scenario
3. Characters thought to be responsible for wrongdoings; parts utilized in entertainment or dramatic context; contributors involved in specific operations or occurrences

Etymology: "Perps" is the plural of "perp", a clipping of "perpetrator", the person who carries out a crime. The clipping took the first syllables of the longer word and dropped the rest, a habit common in police and newspaper slang. The longer word itself traces back to the Latin "perpetrare", meaning to accomplish or carry through, with the sense of wrongdoing attaching to it only later. The clipped form has a second, unrelated source. In finance, "perpetual" describes bonds or futures contracts that never mature, and "perp" was clipped from those terms too. Both routes produced the same short form, so the plural can refer to criminals in a courtroom or to dealers in a financial market. The meaning that is most familiar today, the people involved in a staged or theatrical event, grew out of the crime sense by extension, applying the policing vocabulary to any cast of participants in a scenario.

Synonyms: perpetrators, offenders, culprits, criminals, lawbreakers

Antonyms: victims, innocents, bystanders