culprit •
\KUL-prit\ • noun 1 : one accused of or charged with a crime 2 : one
guilty of a crime or a fault 3 : the source or
cause of a problem
Examples: After the
empty warehouse burned down, an investigation determined faulty wiring to be the culprit.
"Police searched
a parking structure in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles Saturday for one of two
armed suspects who robbed a pedestrian but were unable to locate the
culprit." — Los Angeles Daily News, August
2, 2014
Did you know? We would
be culpable if we didn't clearly explain the origins behind culprit.
Yes, it is related to
culpable, which itself derives from Latin culpare, meaning "to
blame," via Middle English and Anglo-French. But the etymology of culprit
is not so straightforward. In Anglo-French, culpable meant "guilty,"
and this was abbreviated "cul." in legal briefs and texts. Culprit
was formed by combining this abbreviation with prest, prit, meaning
"ready"—that is, ready to prove an accusation. Literally, then, a
culprit was one who was ready to be proven guilty. English then borrowed the word for one accused of a wrongdoing.
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