recidivist vs offender

recidivist and offender both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
recidivist	Yes	No	No	No
offender	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, offender is a hypernym of recidivist; that is, offender is a word with a broader meaning than recidivist:

recidivist: someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior
offender: a person who transgresses moral or civil law

Other hypernyms of recidivist include wrongdoer.

recidivist (noun)	offender (noun)
someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior	a person who transgresses moral or civil law
someone who is repeatedly arrested for criminal behavior (especially for the same criminal behavior)