accuse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English acusen, also accusen,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French acuser, later accuser,^[6][7][8][9] or directly from Latin accūsō (“to call to account, blame, charge with a crime”).^[2][7][6] The revised OED finds the Latin verb borrowed already in Old English, in the Rushworth Gospels, and reinforced or borrowed again in Middle English from Anglo-Norman and Old French.^[6] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the mid-12th century, with the senses to charge with wrongdoing, to blame and to prosecute.^[10] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to, with regard to”) and causa (“a cause, a lawsuit”),^{[7][11][12][13]} the source of cause.^[7][4] The spelling with a double c follows Latin: in the late 14th century the English and French forms with a- were refashioned after it.^[2][6] The Latin verb is also the source of accusare, acusar and acusar.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To charge a person with a fault, crime or offence: in Old English, in the Rushworth Gospels,^[6] and in Middle English about 1300, in a life of Thomas Becket, with of.^[6][7][14]

Semantic evolution

In Latin, causa here meant a legal action rather than a cause in the general sense, so Latin accūsō was to call someone to account for what they had done.^[15] Old French had earlier used acuser for "to announce, disclose" (12th century),^[7] and in Middle English the verb too could mean to betray or reveal a fault, as in Chaucer's Troilus (before 1413), a sense now rare.^[6] Chaucer used the verb 21 times, Gower 10 times.^[16] From the Wycliffite Bible on it could also mean to blame a thing or to find fault with it (before 1382),^[6] and an intransitive use, to make accusations, is recorded from about 1384.^[6] The noun accuse, an accusation, is recorded from Lydgate (before 1439) and was apparently formed again in the late 20th century.^[6][3] Johnson (1755) noted that the verb takes of before the charge.^[17] In west Somerset dialect accuse meant to appoint or invite, and in Ireland to admit or suppose.^[18]

Timeline

• Old English – to charge (a person) with a fault or offence, in the Rushworth Gospels.^[6]
• c. 1300 – acusen, to charge with an offence; with of.^[6][7][2]
• a1382 – to blame or find fault with something.^[6]
• c. 1384 – intransitive, to make accusations.^[6]
• late 14th century – the spelling with ac- after Latin.^[2]
• a1413 – to betray, reveal (a fault), in Chaucer (now rare).^[6]
• a1439 – noun, an accusation, in Lydgate.^[6]
• 1888 – with direct speech, to say accusingly.^[6]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To charge someone with a fault, wrong or crime: The clerk was accused of stealing from the till.
2. To blame someone or something.
3. To make accusations; to say something accusingly.

Word family

• accuser
• accusingly
• accusable
• accusably
• accusant
• accusal
• reaccuse

Related words

• accusation
• accusative
• accusatory
• excuse
• recuse
• ruse
• cause

Usage notes

Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary for the distinction that accuse usually expresses something more formal and serious than charge.^[7] The grammatical term accusative comes from the same Latin verb through a mistranslation: Latin grammarians rendered a Greek term for the case of causation by the sense "accuse" of the related Greek verb.^[15][19]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray