culpability
Americannoun
Usage
What does culpability mean? Culpability is the quality of being culpable—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. Culpability is the guilt or blame that a person deserves.The words culpable and culpability are typically used in serious legal contexts involving crimes.Example: It’s the job of a jury to assign or reject culpability for a crime.
Other Word Forms
- nonculpability noun
Etymology
Origin of culpability
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.
Two jurors interviewed after the verdict said the eight days of deliberation were filled with questions about culpability and what signal they wanted their decisions to send to Meta and YouTube.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026
That this didn’t happen has sparked a back-and-forth about culpability, with Deadline reporting BAFTA’s assurance that it made the BBC and the broadcast’s producers aware that the slur was audible shortly after Davidson blurted it.
From Salon • Mar. 1, 2026
But the gulf between public opinion and civil culpability is vast, attorneys for the platforms say.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 27, 2026
To use an example mentioned above, the court thinks that people who commit robbery have sufficiently high culpability “under every factual scenario”—a conclusion that can only be understood as the willful ignorance of reality.
From Slate • Dec. 29, 2025
But to completely disregard a person's disability would be unfair in evaluating what degree of culpability to assign and what sentence to impose.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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.
