accuse

English

Etymology

First attested around 1300. From Middle English acusen, from Old French acuser, from Latin accūsō (“to call to account, accuse”), from ad (“to”) + causa (“cause, lawsuit, reason”). Akin to cause. Displaced native English bewray.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: əkyo͞ozʹ, IPA^(key): /əˈkjuːz/
• (US) enPR: əkyo͞ozʹ, IPA^(key): /əˈkjuz/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːz
• Hyphenation: ac‧cuse

Verb

accuse (third-person singular simple present accuses, present participle accusing, simple past and past participle accused)

1. (transitive) to find fault with, blame, censure
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Romans 2:15:

     […] and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

   • 1849 February 2, Lord Palmerston, The Address in Answer to the Speech—Adjourned Debate, House of Commons; republished as Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, volume 102, third series, 1849, page 216:

     We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms when their differences might have involved the Powers of Europe in contention.

2. (transitive, law, followed by "of") to charge with having committed a crime or offence

   Synonyms: charge, indict, impeach, arraign

   For the U.S. President to be impeached, he must be accused of a high crime or misdemeanor.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Acts 24:13:

     Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.

   • 1981, Hualing Nieh, editor, Literature of the Hundred Flowers‎, volume II, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page xxxix:

     Ting Ling had disappeared from public life in 1958. She was accused of being a "Rightist" and was sent to a farm in Hei-lung-chiang Province in remote northeast China, worked there twelve years raising chickens, was in prison five years (1970-1975), and began to live in a village in Shansi in 1975.

3. (intransitive) to make an accusation against someone

   Synonyms: blame, censure, reproach, criminate

   • 2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55:

     According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

accuse (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Accusation.
   • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, act 3, scene 1, lines 158–160:

     And dogged York, that reaches at the moon, / Whose overweening arm I have plucked back, / By false accuse doth level at my life.

Further reading

• “accuse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “accuse”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “accuse”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• cuecas

French

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

accuse

1. inflection of accuser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /akˈku.ze/
• Rhymes: -uze
• Hyphenation: ac‧cù‧se

Noun

accuse f

1. plural of accusa

Portuguese

Verb

accuse

1. inflection of accusar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative