Culpa

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart. Ancient-Rome

    "Every actual delict presupposes a dolus or culpa, with the concomitant consciousness and prepense"

Synonyms

All synonyms
defaultderelictiondisregardfailureinadvertenceinattention

Example

More examples

""Mary, is there a legal term defined as 'Per translationem culpa posito sanguine'?" "No, Tom, you just made that up." "Mary, you're under arrest for the murder of Richard Britteridge." "Do you mean one of the original Mayflower passengers?" "Where were you on the night of Wednesday, December 20th, 1620?""

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.