culpa
Americannoun
-
Roman and Civil Law. negligence; neglect (distinguished from dolus).
One is not always liable before law for culpa resulting in damages.
-
guilt; sin.
noun
-
civil law an act of neglect
-
a fault; sin; guilt
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of culpa
1250–1300; Old English < Latin: fault, liability, blame
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.
See Examples For:
Three months later, I published a mea culpa, in which I renounced my support for Trump and apologized for my hurtful deeds and rhetoric.
From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2026
Instead, in a sign of the times that seems impossibly quaint in the harsh light of 2026, she issued a somber mea culpa.
From Slate ● May 6, 2026
San Francisco-based Grammarly didn’t make things any better with a mea culpa posted on LinkedIn by its chief executive, Shishir Mehrotra.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2026
Joz, along with Federighi, delivered the mea culpa that Apple’s AI efforts so far haven’t met the company’s high quality standards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
If Toby went to the apartment right now, a mea culpa on his lips, Luke would forgive him.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
What followed was Khosrowshahi’s meticulous strategy, involving public mea culpae, governance changes, software overhauls, reworked safety and crime protocols, and political diplomacy.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 26, 2018
And I do not think I can stand by any longer--which might be adaerere culpae.
From The Castle Inn by Weyman, Stanley John
De culpâ, he adds, is the same as culpae; so in the ii.
From Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine War by Watson, John Selby
Thus the evil of the penalty accords with the evil of the sin—malum poenae with malum culpae.
From The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; On Human Nature by Saunders, T. Bailey (Thomas Bailey)
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.
