Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Deserving of blame or censure; blameworthy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Deserving censure; blamable; blameworthy: said of persons or their conduct.
  • Guilty.
  • noun A culprit.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Deserving censure; worthy of blame; faulty; immoral; criminal.
  • adjective obsolete Guilty.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective meriting condemnation, censure or blame, especially as something wrong, harmful or injurious; blameworthy

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective deserving blame or censure as being wrong or evil or injurious

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English coupable, from Old French, from Latin culpābilis, from culpāre, to blame, from culpa, fault.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English culpable, from Old French culpable, from Latin culpabilis ("blameworthy"), from culpare ("to blame, condemn"), from culpa ("fault, crime, mistake")

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Examples

  • Remember, there are also specific child abuse laws that many states have that go beyond intentional crimes that can make you criminally responsible for what they call culpable neglect.

    CNN Transcript May 5, 2002 2002

  • She was reduced to the last degree of poverty; her friends held themselves aloof, disgusted at what they termed her culpable weakness; she and her children suffered from cold and hunger; and during her subsequent illness she and they must have starved and frozen but for the public charities, that would not let anyone in our midst perish from want of necessary food and fuel.

    Ishmael In the Depths Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth 1859

  • And so the story goes, of all the organizations and institutions that have engaged in culpable activities, one is singled out for punishment by the Federal Government.

    ACORN files lawsuit over loss of federal funding 2009

  • To me the only place the Feds are culpable is in the authorization of funds to build up the levees.

    Rebuilding New Orleans? « BuzzMachine 2005

  • To me the only place the Feds are culpable is in the authorization of funds to build up the levees.

    Responsibility « BuzzMachine 2005

  • During the reign of the late king, the ark had been left in culpable neglect.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • If allowing sin to enter creation makes God "culpable" -- well, it can't be said He hasn't suffered for it ...

    Pharyngula 2009

  • "If allowing sin to enter creation makes God" culpable "-- well, it can't be said He hasn't suffered for it ..."

    Pharyngula 2009

  • If allowing sin to enter creation makes God "culpable" -- well, it can't be said He hasn't suffered for it ...

    Pharyngula 2009

  • Still, though, the head of the investigation said there was no evidence of deliberate distortion or what Lord Butler called culpable negligence.

    CNN Transcript Jul 17, 2004 2004

Comments

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  • The word sounds like it's okay to pile things on top of him/her/it, and it also has sort of a hangdog, Eeyore sort of feel to it.

    June 9, 2009