capital offense

1. 1.

   a crime so serious that capital punishment is considered appropriate

   Broadercrime

Questions about capital offense

What does capital offense mean?

capital offense means "a crime so serious that capital punishment is considered appropriate".

Is capital offense a common word?

capital offense is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.