[f. prec., with subseq. shift of the stress.]
1. One convicted in a judicial investigation of a punishable offence. arch.
1530–1. Act 22 Hen. VIII., c. 15. All wilfull escapes, as well of conuictes as of other persones.
1590. Greenwood, Collect, Sclaund. Art., A ij b. Who … might delyuer them, as conuicts of heresie vnto the secular powers.
1740. Propos. Prov. Poor, 13. Convicts of Theft and Robberies … may be committed.
1773. Gentl. Mag., XLIII. 44. The following convicts were executed at Tyburn pursuant to their sentence.
1858. J. Martineau, Stud. Chr., 83. That this Galilean convict shall be the world’s confessed deliverer.
2. spec. A condemned criminal serving a sentence of penal servitude.
1786. Trials, etc., of J. Shepherd, 49. The intended transportation of convicts to the new settlements at Botany Bay.
1823. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859). II. 15/1. Under the infamous term convict, are comprehended crimes of the most different degrees and species of guilt. One man is transported for [etc.].
1841–44. Emerson, Ess., Politics, Wks. (Bohn), I. 242. The children of the convicts at Botany Bay.
Mod. Escape of a convict from Dartmoor.
† 3. A person proved to be wrong. Obs.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., IV. xiv. (1588), 562. Even so were these conuicts ridiculously purged by them.
4. attrib. and Comb. (chiefly in sense 2). a. of or pertaining to convicts or to the system of keeping convicted criminals in penal establishments or settlements; b. used for convicts, as convict-barge, -colony, -dress, -hulk, -prison, -ship, etc.
a. 1817. Bentham, Wks., XI. 152. The convict population of the country.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXV. 138/1. The importation of negro slaves … soon lowered the value of convict labour.
1863. P. Barry, Dockyard Econ., 145. The unwieldy convict gangs.
1887. Times, 26 Aug., 7/5. Of convict life in the Australian colonies.
b. 1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1684), III. 158. The Bishop sent him to the convict Prison.
1758. J. Blake, Plan Mar. Syst., 50. The infection which a few hands taken out of a … convict-ship spread amongst the … seamen.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXV. 146/2. On board the different convict-hulks a book is kept by an overseer, in which are entered the names of all convicts.
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, I. p. xviii. Giving the Mother Country the right to make the Cape a Convict Colony.
1885. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. cxxxii. 18. It shall be their convict dress to all eternity.
1890. Century Mag., XXXVIII. 743/2. He was … incarcerated in the central convict-prison at Kharkoff.
