Wrongdoers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who violate laws or ethical norms through their actions
2. Persons engaged in acts that break legal rules or moral principles
3. Individuals responsible for actions against the law or ethical standards

Etymology: "Wrongdoers" is the plural of "wrongdoer," a compound formed from "wrong" and "doer," with "doer" being the ordinary English agent noun for one who does something. The first element carries most of the history. Old English "wrang" meant "twisted" or "crooked," a physical sense that later shifted toward the moral idea of something bent away from what is right. Old Norse "rangr," with the same meaning, reinforced the word in the Viking-age English of the Danelaw, and Middle English "wrong" eventually took on the abstract sense of injustice or error. The root behind all of this is a Germanic word for "twisting," traceable back to a Proto-Indo-European base that also gave rise to the idea of wringing cloth, which is a neat image of the same physical twisting. English speakers never thought of a wrongdoer as someone who literally twists something, but the picture of a crooked path lies beneath the moral sense.

Synonyms: offenders, criminals, miscreants

Antonyms: law-abiders, good citizens