In flagrante delicto (Latin: "in blazing offence") or sometimes simply in flagrante (Latin: "in 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.
The phrase combines the present active participle flagrāns (flaming or blazing) with the noun dēlictum (offence, misdeed or crime). In this term the Latin preposition in, not indicating motion, takes the ablative. The closest literal translation would be "in blazing offence", where "blazing" is a metaphor for vigorous, highly visible action.
The Latin term is sometimes used colloquially as a euphemism for someone being caught in the act of sexual intercourse.
Famous quotes containing the word delicto:
“Farm policy, although it’s complex, can be explained. What it can’t be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, DC, videotaped in flagrante delicto has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)