exculpate
Americanverb (used with object)
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exculpates,
present (3rd person singular)
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exculpated,
past participle, past
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exculpating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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exculpationnoun
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exculpableadjective
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exculpatoryadjective
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unexculpableadjective
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unexculpatedadjective
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nonexculpableadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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exculpatesimple
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exculpatessimple
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have exculpatedperfect
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has exculpatedperfect
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am exculpatingprogressive
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are exculpatingprogressive
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is exculpatingprogressive
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have been exculpatingperfect progressive
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has been exculpatingperfect progressive
Past
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exculpatedsimple
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had exculpatedperfect
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was exculpatingprogressive
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were exculpatingprogressive
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had been exculpatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of exculpate
First recorded in 1650–60; from Latin exculpātus “freed from blame,” equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + culpātus “blamed” (past participle of culpāre; see culpable)
Explanation
To exculpate means to find someone not guilty of criminal charges. If you've been wrongly accused of robbery, you'd better hope a judge will exculpate you, unless you want to go to jail because you've heard prison food is amazing. Exculpate comes from two Latin words: ex-, meaning "from," and culpa, meaning "blame." Exculpate is similar in meaning to exonerate. When you exonerate someone, you clear a person of an accusation and any suspicion that goes along with it. Exculpate usually refers more directly to clearing the charges against someone. So if that judge exculpates you from the robbery charge, everyone in town might still think you did it. Get him to exculpate and exonerate you.
Vocabulary lists containing exculpate
Frankenstein
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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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.
See Examples For:
After catching a boat to Chicago, Higgins hypothesized to reporters that the trip through the Straits of Mackinac caused ice to cut the hull; his explanation helped him exculpate his employers.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 2, 2023
Nobody doubts that a clever jurist with a dictionary and a truckload of motivated reasoning can use the law to exculpate himself and inculpate others.
From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2023
He devises a daring, sometimes distracting but ultimately inspired format by saving his commentary for footnotes that contextualize, teasingly contradict and occasionally exculpate Rodgers from her unsparing self-assessments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
“It does not vary either to exculpate on the basis of the actor’s unusual callousness or to condemn for outraging an excessively delicate relative of the deceased,” Rennie wrote, citing the Model Penal Code.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2022
Of the manner of this gentleman's death she knows nothing, but in regard to your preceding conduct she does anything but exculpate you.
From Corse de Leon, Volume I (of 2) or, The Brigand; a Romance by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James
In response, Bauer attorney Shawn Holley wrote: “There is no public interest in shielding those who make materially misleading complaints from disclosure of information that exculpates the alleged perpetrator.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2022
I’m not certain how to articulate what was different in a way anyone would find remotely credible, but I’m certain that it was real, and that it exculpates me.
From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2019
In one passage, a “former partner” pointedly exculpates Bell: “When the Gupta project first arose, senior members of the Geopolitical team, including Bell, were quite outspoken that we should not do it.”
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 18, 2018
Saletan believes that a distinction between historical science and modern science is what exculpates the creationist:
From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2014
If he continually chastens his language and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of the home and of the body.
From Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga
However the public chose to remember her, the German government exculpated Mata Hari in 1930.
From Time ● Oct. 13, 2017
After spending decades in prison, they learned from an article in the Washington Post that prosecutors had withheld evidence that could have exculpated them.
From Slate ● Apr. 1, 2017
He was exculpated by DNA evidence and freed in 2009 after 31 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 28, 2016
The last trial was, in many ways, the most astonishing, because it came four years after new DNA evidence had exculpated Rivera.
From The New Yorker ● May 22, 2015
To think," he reflected aloud as the waiter filled his glass, "of the Manderson mystery disposed of, the innocent exculpated, and your own and Mabel's happiness crowned—all coming upon me together!
From The Woman in Black by E. C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
But the overhauled ending, which sheds more light on the title character’s motivation without exculpating him, suggests the difficulty of what’s being dramatically attempted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2021
Even Ihsan’s parents’ statements exculpating Ameen were invalid; their only admissible testimony was what was written by Dhiya, which they insist is fraudulent.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 20, 2020
It ends with archive television news footage of voters largely exculpating him after the inquest in 1970.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 5, 2018
“It basically removed my chances of exculpating myself from everything she said about me,” he said.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2017
He thought her conduct hard, cold, and selfish, and he held himself absolved by the scandal she had caused from all duties towards her, and entirely justified in exculpating himself as best he might.
From A Noble Name or D?nninghausen by Claire Von Gl?mer
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.
