罪(zuì) - crime, guilt, sin in Mandarin

罪 (zuì) is the noun for an offence: a crime in law, guilt in a courtroom, sin in a church. It is the root of a small family of common words, so 犯罪 is to commit a crime, 罪犯 is a criminal and 有罪 means guilty.

On its own it appears mostly in fixed patterns. 犯罪, 有罪, 无罪 and 认罪 (to plead guilty) will carry you through almost every use you meet in a news report or a courtroom drama.

The trap is the moral weight. English separates "crime" from "sin" from "fault", and Mandarin lets 罪 cover all three, so 你的罪 sounds far heavier than a casual English "your fault". For an everyday mistake use 错 or 错误; save 罪 for things a court or a conscience would take seriously. Watch the tone too: 罪 zuì and 最 zuì differ only in writing, so context does the separating.