Etymologically
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culpo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈkʊɫ.poː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈkul.po][1]

Forms

culpō (present infinitive culpāre, perfect active culpāvī, supine culpātum); first conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin culpa (“fault, blame”) + -ō.[2][3][1] De Vaan traces culpa to Proto-Italic *k(w)e/ol(V)pā- (“wrong, mistake”) and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *kʷolp-h₂- (“bend, turn”): if, as Ernout and Meillet held, it first meant a state of error, it may be linked with Germanic words for “to wind, bend”.[4] He compares Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, lap”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[4] who has “I'd much rather be falsely praised than truly blamed”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to blame, censure or find fault with people, as Lucilius' critic who blames Homer, and things, as Plautus' man who finds fault with the gods' plans and Ovid's woman who faulted a goddess's beauty.[2] Pliny the Elder uses it with an infinitive, to complain that colours wash out.[2] Lewis & Short call it rare, mostly post-Augustan and absent from Cicero's time.[5] Church Latin glosses it “blame, disapprove, find fault with”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of being blamed and of faulting the gods.[2][4][7]
  • c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of blaming Homer.[2][7]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of faulting a goddess's face.[2][7]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of complaining.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To blame, censure, find fault with.[2][5][6][1]
  2. To complain that.[2]

Word family

  • culpābilis
  • culpātiō
  • culpitō
  • dēculpātus
  • inculpātus
  • inculpō

Usage notes

Döderlein says that arguere is the most general word for charging someone with guilt, while incūsāre and the less frequent culpāre are only complaints made outside a court of law.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper