In flagrante delicto

In flagrante delicto (Latin: "in a blazing offence") or sometimes simply in flagrante (Latin: "while blazing") is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence (compare corpus delicti). The colloquial "caught in the act," "caught red-handed," or "caught rapid" are English equivalents.^[1]^[2]

Like many instances of the ablative case in Latin, the expression does not have a simple translation into English. The root phrase is the adjective flagrāns (flaming or blazing) and the noun dēlictum (offence, misdeed or crime). The closest literal translation would be "with the offence blazing", where "blazing" is a metaphor for vigorous, highly visible action.

The Latin term is sometimes used colloquially as a euphemism for a couple being caught in the act of sexual intercourse, as it is used in the film Clue or in the episode of Alan Partridge (all the way back, at least, to the second episode of Knowing Me, Knowing You in which, under hypnosis, Alan banishes the character played by Ursula Andress from his car for removing her top and demanding he make love to her); in modern usage the intercourse need not be adulterous or illicit.^{[citation needed]}

The school motto of the notorious fictional girls school St. Trinian's as featured in the film The Belles of St Trinian's

References

^ The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English, Ed. Jennifer Speake, Berkley Books, (1999) Oxford University Press
^ A Dictionary of Law by Jonathan Law and Elizabeth A. Martin, Oxford University Press 2009

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[1] The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English, Ed. Jennifer Speake, Berkley Books, (1999) Oxford University Press

[2] A Dictionary of Law by Jonathan Law and Elizabeth A. Martin, Oxford University Press 2009

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