Criminal
Criminal noun - A person who has committed a crime.
Public enemy and criminal are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Public enemy" instead a noun "Criminal".
Public enemy
Criminal and public enemy are semantically related. You can use "Criminal" instead a noun phrase "Public enemy".
Both terms in one sentence
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The Public Enemy, which helped establish the gangster film genre, opens with a title card explicitly stating that the studio did not seek to "glorify the hoodlum or criminal".
Source: Do Not Do This Cool Thing - Scarface by Howard Hawks was not the first gangster film or even the first sound gangster film (that goes to The Public Enemy) but it was the first crime movie that became a huge hit and created controversy since it's main character was an Expy of an actual criminal.
Source: Genre Turning Point -
Moonface despite being a gangster and a criminal (albeit of the Harmless Villain variety) gets away completely scot-free of his crimes (although he's only Public Enemy number thirteen).
Source: Theatre / Anything Goes
Cite this Source
Public enemy and Criminal. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 09, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/criminal/public_enemy
Criminal & Public enemy. N.p., 2016. Web. 09 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/criminal/public_enemy>.
Public enemy or Criminal. 2016. Accessed August 09, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/criminal/public_enemy.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "criminal" and "public enemy" have occurred on timeline