illegality

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of legality

Nouns

1. illegality, lawlessness, unlawfulness, unconstitutionality; illegitimacy, bar sinister, bastardy; criminality; outlawry; extralegality; criminology; criminalization. See disobedience, unconformity, prohibition, improbity, wrong.

2. violence, brute force; tyranny, despotism; mob, lynch, martial, or drumhead law, law of the streets, kangaroo court; anarchy, nihilism, law unto itself; rebellion, coup d'étât, putsch, revolution.

3.

a. offense, crime [of passion, commission, or omission], transgression, infringement, infraction, felony, misdemeanor, malfeasance, capital crime, violation, premeditated or unpremeditated crime, breach, contravention, delinquency; white- or blue-collar crime; crime against humanity; victimless crime; technical violation or breach.

b. abduction, adultery, assault [and battery], air piracy, skyjacking, arson, assassination, bigamy, blackmail, bootlegging, breaking and entering (see stealing), bribery, bunko, collusion, fraud, confidence game, conspiracy, contempt of court, counterfeiting, cybercrime, defalcation, embezzlement, defamation, disorderly conduct, extortion, forgery, graft, grand or petit larceny, hijacking, homicide (see killing), jury tampering, libel, looting, malicious mischief, mayhem, mugging, mutiny, nuisance, numbers racket, obstruction of justice, peculation, perjury, pickpocketing, piracy, poaching, prostitution, racketeering, [statutory, spousal, or date] rape, reckless endanger-ment, resisting arrest, rumrunning, rustling, safecracking, sedition, shanghaiing, shoplifting, skyjacking, slander, smuggling, sodomy, soliciting, subornation, swindling, terrorism, treason, trespass, usury, vagrancy, vandalism. Slang, wilding, Jewish lightning.

4. (organized crime) racketeering, confidence or bunco game, swindling, etc.; underworld. See deception.

5. (illegal civil action) undueness, invalidity, impropriety, absence of right, usurpation, encroachment.

6. criminal, crook, perpetrator, outlaw, lawbreaker, scofflaw (see evildoer); illegal immigrant, undocumented person, worker, etc.; accessory [before, during, or after the fact], accomplice; first offender, hardened or career criminal, public enemy; juvenile delinquent, youthful offender; cyberthief; dacoit; mass murderer, serial killer; bastard, natural child. Slang, perp, juve.

Verbs — offend against, break, flout, contravene, or violate the law; take the law into one's own hands; smuggle, run, poach, encroach, usurp (see stealing).

Adjectives — illegal, prohibited, unsanctioned, not allowed, verboten, interdit, unlawful, outlaw[ed], illegitimate, illicit, contraband, actionable, criminal, unchartered, unlicensed, unconstitutional; undue, unwarranted, unwarrantable; unauthorized, invalid; crooked, dishonest (see improbity); informal, unofficial, injudicial, extrajudicial; lawless, arbitrary, licentious; despotic, summary, irresponsible; unanswerable, unaccountable; null and void; bastard, born out of wedlock. Slang, hot.

Adverbs — illegally; with a high hand; in violation; outside or beyond the law.

Quotations — It's awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it (Will Rogers), Crime does not pay — enough (Clayton Rawson), All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening (Alexander Woollcott).

Antonyms, see legality.

II

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The state or quality of being illegal: illegitimacy, illicitness, unlawfulness. See CRIMES, LAW. 2. A serious breaking of the public law: crime, misdeed, offense. Law: felony. See CRIMES.