culpable
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does culpable mean? Culpable means deserving blame for a crime or wrongdoing. When someone is described as culpable for something, it means it’s their fault or that they are guilty of it. Culpable is typically used in serious legal contexts involving crimes. The noun culpability refers to the guilt or blame that is deserved for some crime or wrongdoing. Example: The CEO should be held criminally culpable for the negligence that resulted in the deaths of several employees.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of culpable
1275–1325; Middle English < Latin culpābilis, equivalent to culpā ( re ) to hold liable (derivative of culpa blame) + -bilis -ble; replacing Middle English coupable < Middle French < Latin as above
Explanation
If a child tells his mother he was not to blame for the cookie jar being broken, she could still find him culpable if he was the only one home. Culpable means to be at fault. Culpable is being deserving of blame. If you are culpable of a crime, you are the culprit, or the one who did it. Culpable can be used when looking for the root of the problem rather than a simple who done it. If a teacher leaves the room during a difficult test, and the students decide to cheat, parents might ask whether or not the teacher was also somewhat culpable for the outcome.
Vocabulary lists containing culpable
100 SAT words Beginning with "C"
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Feeling Sorry?
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Culpable abstention refers to a failure to perform a required act.
From Reuters • Oct. 12, 2021
Culpable bankers, he says, should go straight to jail.
From The Guardian • Jul. 13, 2012
John Terry 4 Culpable, like Upson, for the first goal.
From The Guardian • Jun. 27, 2010
Culpable -is he was, who but must lament that so classic a mind had only assumed so elegant and amiable a semblance as he adopted after the disappointment of his prospects and hopes?
From The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1 by Cunningham, Peter
Culpable neglect, it may be added, was sometimes shown in the admission of jesting or profane epitaphs.
From The English Church in the Eighteenth Century by Abbey, Charles J. (Charles John)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
