Convict, v. t. [imp. & p.p. Convicted; p.pr. & vb.n. Convicting.]
1. To prove or find guilty of an offense or crime charged; to pronounce guilty, as by legal decision, or by one's conscience. He [Baxter] . . . had been convicted by a jury. Macaulay. They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one. John viii. 9.
2. To prove or show to be false; to confute; to refute. [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.
3. To demonstrate by proof or evidence; to prove. Imagining that these proofs will convict a testament, to have that in it which other men can nowhere by reading find. Hooker.
4. To defeat; to doom to destruction. [Obs.] A whole armado of convicted sail. Shak.
1 more senses
Syn. -- To confute; defect; convince; confound.
2 other Webster entries under this spelling
Convict, p.a.
Proved or found guilty; convicted. [Obs.] Shak. Convict by flight, and rebel to all law. Milton.
Convict, n.
1. A person proved guilty of a crime alleged against him; one legally convicted or sentenced to punishment for some crime.
2. A criminal sentenced to penal servitude.
Syn. -- Malefactor; culprit; felon; criminal.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for convict; he lists it under condemn.
Where he writes about it:
A person is convicted when his guilt is made clearly manifest to others; in somewhat archaic use, a person is said to be convicted when guilt is brought clearly home to his own conscience (convict in this sense being allied with convince, which see under persuade); in legal usage one is said to be convicted only by the verdict of a jury. — from condemn