culpa

Forms

culpa f (plural culpas)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling cullpa in 1499.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin culpa (“fault, offence, error”), taken over in its Latin form;^[2][3][1] Nascentes calls it a learned word and Wiktionary a learned borrowing.^[2][3][1] García de Diego sets a popular Old Spanish colpa beside the learned Spanish culpa, a learned word like the Portuguese one.^[4] The Spanish word is recorded from 1220–1250.^[5]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin word as Proto-Italic “wrong, mistake”, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷolp-h₂- (“bend, turn”), and compares Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, lap”) and Old Norse hvelfa (“to vault, turn over”); an older Latin form was colpa.^[6] Wiktionary gives the form Proto-Italic *kʷolpā.^[1] The original meaning would thus have been “a state of error” rather than a guilty act.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][7] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have per nossa culpa “through our fault” and mia culpa ca fui errada “my fault, for I went astray”.^[8] The troubadours of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda use it for a sin and in aver culpa “to be to blame” and põer culpa “to lay the blame”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana uses the word for blame or reproach.^[8] Barbosa (1611) lists por minha culpa, desculpar and tornar a culpa a outrem “to shift the blame onto another”.^[9] Bluteau defines it as a voluntary and criminal fault, and Morais (1789) as a voluntary fault against one's duty, with dar or pôr a culpa “to impute”.^[10][11] Modern dictionaries add the legal sense, negligence that causes harm without intent to harm, and the psychological sense, the painful feeling of having broken a rule.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 13th century – per nossa culpa in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[8]
• 1416 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[13]
• 1499 – the spelling cullpa.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Culpa with Latin culpa.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists por minha culpa as Latin mea culpa.^[9]
• 1660 – first record of desculpável and indesculpável.^[7]
• 1706 – first record of culpável.^[7]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as a voluntary fault against duty.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. blame, responsibility for harm or misfortune caused to someone.^[2][15]
2. A fault, offence or crime.^[2][16][1]
3. A cause of something bad: a seca teve culpa na fome.^[2][15]
4. (law) negligence: an act or omission that harms another through carelessness or lack of skill, without intent.^[2][12]
5. (psychology) guilt, the painful awareness of having broken a rule or a commitment.^[2]
6. (religion) A sin; responsibility for a transgression against God.^[2][12]

Word family

• desculpa
• desculpar
• inculpar
• indesculpável

Related words

• culpar
• culpado
• culpável
• Latin culpa

Usage notes

Ter culpa means “to be to blame”, and por culpa de “because of, through the fault of”.^[15][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. culpa
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. culpa
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. culpa
5. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. culpa
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. culpa
8. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. culpa
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. culpa
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. culpa
11. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 354
12. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. culpa
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. culpa
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. culpa
15. ^ a b c Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. culpa
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. culpa