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
Explanation
Culpability is a state of guilt or responsibility. A lot of lawsuits are about who has culpability for something that went wrong. Culpability is a fancy-sounding word, but it's a simple concept: guilt. You have culpability if you're responsible for something, usually something bad. If you left the door open and your house was robbed, you have some culpability (not as much as the robber, though). If a store owner doesn't salt the ice on the sidewalk and you slip, he has some culpability if you get injured. Figuring out culpability is about figuring out who's to blame.
Vocabulary lists containing culpability
Just Mercy
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myPerspectives 9.2
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The Woman Warrior
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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.
In a tongue-in-cheek post to Instagram, Glass Animals - best known for their 2020 sleeper-hit Heat Waves - claimed culpability for the lunar lavatory malfunctions.
From BBC • Apr. 10, 2026
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
Felony murder allows for an incredibly broad net of culpability, yet it is law in most states.
From Slate • Mar. 6, 2026
Start to finish, “Reality Check” is an exercise in self-examination and culpability.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2026
Stewing over my culpability, I put off calling Andy Harris’s partner, Fiona McPherson, and Rob Hall’s wife, Jan Arnold, for such a long time that they finally phoned me from New Zealand.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
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.
