The compound 'true-crime' is a modern English formation that directly combines two native and borrowed elements to create a specific genre descriptor. The adjective 'true', with its Germanic roots in concepts of faithfulness and reality, is applied to the noun 'crime', which entered English via French from Latin, where it originally denoted a judicial charge. The term's logic is transparent: it distinguishes factual accounts of criminal acts from fictional ones. The genre's name thus relies on the established, literal meanings of its components to signal its content—narratives that are both factual ('true') and focused on law-breaking ('crime').

Structure: true (factual) + crime (illegal act) - true: From Old English 'trēowe' (faithful, trustworthy), of Germanic origin. In this compound, it functions as an adjective meaning 'based on fact, real'. - crime: From Old French 'crimne', from Latin 'crimen' (judgment, accusation, offense). In this compound, it functions as a noun meaning 'an illegal act'.