culpable
culpable
Definition
cul·pa·ble (kul′pə bəl)
adjective
deserving blame; blameworthy
Etymology: altered, modeled on L < ME coupable < OFr < L culpabilis < culpa, crime, fault, blame
cul′·pa·bil′ity (-bil′ə tē) noun
cul′·pa·bly (-blē) adverb
culpable
Synonyms
culpable
Law Definition
adj
Deserving of blame.
culpable
Usage Examples
Adjective complement with noun phrase
- make: They failed in their attempt to make the other driver culpable for the old damage and the claim was thrown out.
Modifies a noun
- homicide: In 1840, a Glasgow chimney sweep named Francis Hughes was charged with the culpable homicide of his young assistant, John O'Neill.
- negligence: Was the cause wilful, criminal, culpable, gross negligence or accident?
- neglect: The Court will decide if your failure to pay is due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect.
- ignorance: The resulting problems are compounded by culpable ignorance backed by arrogance.
- delay: We have considered whether there was culpable delay in recommending this measure.
- failure: Note that this is so even in cases where the culpable failure falls short of " neglect " in the Jamieson sense.
Modifying Another Word
- morally: We consider them to have been morally culpable to some extent.
- equally: Attempts to prove the criminal nature of the regime seemed to declare all Germans equally culpable.
- not: It is the voice of a girl ' I who am not culpable, guiltless, pure.
- personally: A frank answer, so I brave the frank question, ' Do you feel personally culpable for that disaster?
- especially: Asda is especially culpable since so many of its stores are out of town.
- particularly: A Mr. W. Heidrick, long-term member of the Caliphate OTO, is particularly culpable here.
Used with adjective complement
- find: In the event of an accident any person involved can be found culpable under the law.
- hold: Sidney's position on meter, like many writers, suffers from inconsistency for which he cannot be held culpable.
Preposition: in
- incident: Should the Domestic Bursar appear to be culpable in the incident, the concerns should be brought to the Sub Warden.
- eye: The insistent denials have made him more culpable in the eyes of millions of people.
- crime: Everybody knows it and evrybody knows Blair was at best grossly misguided and at worst duplicitous and culpable in a war crime.
- sense: But all the violence is just too cartoonishly absurd to be culpable in that sense.
Preposition: for
- goal: I don't hold the defenders culpable for the goals.
culpable Quotes
How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe's complicity? 'Now you're supposed to be An educated man,' I hear him say.'Puzzle me The right answer to that one.'
Browse dictionary entries near culpable
- culpability
- culpa
- culotte
- culmination
- culminate
- culminant
- culm
- cully
- cullis
- cullion
- culpable mental state
- culprit
- cult
- cultch
- cultigen
- cultivable
- cultivar
- cultivate
- cultivated
- cultivated mushroom
