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
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.
Essayli, meanwhile, criticized jurors, saying they considered things that were not part of the trial — like the Los Angeles Fire Department’s culpability — in their deliberations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
They may never agree about self-defense, culpability, or punishment.
From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2026
The family’s companies have settled many accusations of environmental violations by agreeing to pay fines and invest in better pollution prevention without admitting or denying culpability.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
All of this, said Justice Kinney, made McCullagh's culpability "extremely high".
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
Officials began to suspect that Myers was the sole killer and was desperately trying to implicate others to minimize his culpability.
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.
