Culprit: The One Responsible, and a Word Born From a Clerk's Shorthand
A culprit is the person or thing responsible for something wrong. Its origin is unusual: it seems to come from an abbreviation used in medieval English courtrooms.
A culprit is whoever or whatever caused a problem. Its origin is one of the strangest in English: the leading theory is that it began as a courtroom abbreviation, *cul. prit.*, standing for a clerk's Anglo-French note that the prisoner was guilty and ready to be tried.
- Someone guilty of an offence. *The culprit was never found.*
- The cause of a problem. *Damp was the culprit.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | culprit | The likely culprit. |
| Plural | culprits | Two culprits were caught. |
| Related | culpable | Culpable negligence. |
| Related | culpability | Shared culpability. |
| Related | exculpate | The evidence exculpated him. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The culprit turned out to be a loose wire.Things as well as people can be culprits.
- Police are still looking for the culprits.Slightly informal for a news report.
- Sugar is often blamed as the main culprit.A common framing in health writing.
The guilt family
- Culpable — deserving blame
- Culpability — the state of deserving blame
- Exculpate — clear of blame
- Inculpate — implicate in wrongdoing
- Mea culpa — Latin for through my fault, still used as an admission
All from Latin *culpa*, fault or blame. The abbreviation theory for *culprit* is not certain, but no better explanation has ever been offered, and the word appears suddenly in seventeenth-century trial records.
Can a thing be a culprit?
Yes, and it is very common. A leaking pipe, a faulty sensor or a rich diet can all be called the culprit.
Culprit or suspect?
A suspect is thought to be responsible. A culprit actually is, so the word implies the question has been settled.