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# culpable

«culpable» in Mova's school dictionary: **Deserving blame for something wrong or bad: «He was…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (culpable; more culpable)

### meaning for a pupil

(formal, law) Deserving blame for something wrong or bad: «He was culpable for the accident». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In law and ethics lessons, being culpable means being responsible for harm and deserving blame; courts decide how culpable someone is, and a person who did not mean harm may be less culpable. In stories and history, characters argue about who is culpable. Phrases: «held culpable», «morally culpable», «culpable negligence», «culpable homicide» (Scotland, law: killing without meaning to murder).

### examples

- The driver was found culpable for the crash. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x1)
- Everyone who knew about the bullying and did nothing felt a little culpable. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x2)
- Is a child as culpable as an adult for breaking a rule? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x3)
- The judge said the company was culpable for the pollution. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x4)
- In ethics we discussed when someone is morally culpable. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x5)
- She was not culpable, because she did not know the bridge was unsafe. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/#x6)

### note

Formal; in speech say «to blame» or «guilty». Said «KUL-puh-bul». The noun is «culpability». It comes from Latin «culpa», fault, as in «mea culpa» (my fault). The opposite is «blameless» or «innocent».

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «culpable» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/culpable/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.