Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The judgment of a jury or judge that a person is guilty of a crime as charged.
  • noun The state of being found or proved guilty.
  • noun The act or process of convincing.
  • noun The state or appearance of being convinced.
  • noun A fixed or strong belief. synonym: view.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of convincing one of the truth of something; especially, the act of convincing of error; confutation.
  • noun The state of being convinced or fully persuaded; strong belief on the ground of satisfactory reasons or evidence; the conscious assent of the mind; settled persuasion; a fixed or firm belief: as, an opinion amounting to conviction; he felt a strong conviction of coming deliverance.
  • noun Specifically The state of being convinced that one is or has been acting in opposition to conscience; the state of being convicted of wrong-doing or sin; strong admonition of the conscience; religious compunction.
  • noun The act of proving or finding guilty of an offense charged; especially, the finding by a jury or other legal tribunal that the person on trial is guilty of the offense charged: sometimes used as implying judgment or sentence.
  • noun The state of being convicted or confuted; condemnation upon proof or reasoning; confutation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of convicting; the act of proving, finding, or adjudging, guilty of an offense.
  • noun (Law) A judgment of condemnation entered by a court having jurisdiction; the act or process of finding guilty, or the state of being found guilty of any crime by a legal tribunal.
  • noun The act of convincing of error, or of compelling the admission of a truth; confutation.
  • noun The state of being convinced or convicted; strong persuasion or belief; especially, the state of being convicted of sin, or by one's conscience.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable A firmly held belief.
  • noun countable A judgement of guilt in a court of law.
  • noun uncountable The state of being found or proved guilty.
  • noun uncountable The state of being convinced.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an unshakable belief in something without need for proof or evidence
  • noun (criminal law) a final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman conviction, from Latin convictio, from convictus, the past participle of convincere ("to convict").

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