Noun

(legal) An official formal accusation for a criminal offence, or the process by which it is brought to a jury.

(legal) The official legal document outlining the charges concerned.

(countable, uncountable) An accusation of wrongdoing; a criticism or condemnation.

Noun

(en noun)

The act of prosecuting a scheme or endeavor.

:

(lb) The institution of legal proceedings (particularly criminal) against a person.

*

*:Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

(lb) The prosecuting party.

*{{quote-news, date=21 August 2012, first=Ed, last=Pilkington, newspaper=The Guardian

, title= Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , passage=The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."}}