wrongdoer

English

Etymology

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *wrengʰ- / *wrengʷʰder.?
Proto-Germanic *wringaną
Proto-Indo-European *-ós
Proto-Germanic *-az
Proto-Germanic *wrangaz
Proto-West Germanic *wrang
▲
Old Norse rangrinflu.
Old English wrang
Old Norse rangrinflu.
Middle English wrong
English wrong
English doer
English wrongdoer

    From wrong + doer.

    Pronunciation

    • Audio (Southern England):(file)

    Noun

    wrongdoer (plural wrongdoers)

    1. Someone who does wrong, whether morally, ethically, or in contravention of a law.
      Get and keep wrongdoers out of your thorp (village).
      • 1880, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin, with Tables of the Cases and Principal Matters, volume XLIX, Chicago: Callaghan & Company, page 748:
        Where the owner of the property and several insurers have rights of action for different portions of the value, all arising out of the same wrongful act, they may join in a single action against the wrongdoër.
      • 2009 July 31, William C. Rhoden, “Baseball Players’ Silence Led to Loud Drip of Names”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 November 2022:
        With all due respect to Aaron, every era seems to have had its legion of wrongdoers and shortcutters who used whatever science was available to get an edge.
      • 2012, Wred Fright, Blog Love Omega Glee, page 275:
        Usually it takes him too long going down the stairs from the roof to catch any misdeeder or wrongdoer, but tonight will be different.
      • 2018 March, Leo Zaibert, Rethinking Punishment, Cambridge University Press, page 74:
        From Tadros’s perspective — the perspective of classical utilitarianism — there is nothing objectionable about this moral lobotomy whereby a wrongdoer pops a moral anesthetic pill immediately after committing whatever atrocity one could imagine in order to avoid suffering — provided, that is, that she would “understand” the wrongness of her actions.

    Translations

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