culpable

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English coupable, also culpable,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French coupable (“guilty”), also culpable and coulpable,^[2][6][4][7] from Latin culpābilis (“worthy of blame”),^[2][7][6][8] from culpō (“to blame”),^[7][6][8][9] from culpa (“fault, blame, crime”).^[7][6][8][2] The MED gives both the Old French and the Latin adjective as sources.^[3] The Anglo-Norman form is recorded from the second quarter of the 12th century.^[10] The OED explains the spelling: the Old French word had regularly become coupable by the 13th century, was often written culpable after the Latin in the 14th, and coulpable in the 16th, and English has fixed the Latin form in both spelling and pronunciation.^[2] Barnhart calls the origin of culpa uncertain.^[6] Etymonline reports de Vaan's suggestion of Proto-Indo-European *kuolp- (“to bend, turn”), as in Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, lap”), with an original meaning of "a state of error".^[7] Klein instead compares Oscan kulupu and suggests an original meaning "blow", cognate with κόλαφος (kólaphos, “a blow with the fist”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Guilty, deserving punishment: 1303, in Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne.^[2] Barnhart places the form culpable in the same work, which it dates to before 1338, and finds coupable about 1280,^[6] and Etymonline dates coupable to the late 13th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

It first meant guilty of a crime or sin, of persons and of actions.^[3][2] Chaucer uses coupable four times, as in his Tale of Melibee: The law seith that he is coupable.^[11][3] From about 1380 to 1612 culpable of could also mean liable to a punishment or judgement.^[2] The modern sense, "deserving blame", appears later: the Shorter Oxford dates it to the late 16th century,^[9] the OED first finds it in Cawdrey's dictionary of 1604,^[2] and Hoad gives the 17th century.^[12] Johnson (1755) still defined it as "criminal" and "guilty".^[13] Merriam-Webster now marks "guilty, criminal" as obsolete.^[5] Scots law has the term culpable homicide, homicide not amounting to murder.^[9] A noun, "a guilty person", ran from 1483 to 1742,^[2] and culprit goes back to the abbreviated form of the Anglo-Norman or Latin word in legal records, according to legal tradition.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1303 – guilty, criminal, deserving punishment.^[2]
• before 1340 – with of or in, guilty of an offence or sin.^[2]
• c. 1380 – culpable of, liable to a punishment (obsolete by 1612).^[2]
• 1483 – noun, a guilty person, a culprit (obsolete by 1742).^[2]
• 1604 – deserving blame or censure.^[2]
• 1768 – artistically faulty (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Deserving blame or censure: The inquiry found the owners culpable for the unsafe wiring.^[14][5][2]
2. Conducive to loss or accident through fault, in culpable negligence.^[5]
3. (Scots law) In culpable homicide, homicide not amounting to murder.^[9]
4. (obsolete) Guilty, criminal.^[5][2][13]
5. (obsolete, 1380–1612) Liable to a punishment or judgement.^[2][9]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1483–1742) A guilty person, a culprit.^[2][9]

Word family

• culpability
• culpably
• culpableness
• inculpable
• nonculpable

Related words

• mea culpa
• exculpate
• inculpate
• culprit
• disculpate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d 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)
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins