guilty

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English

Etymology

From Middle English gilty, gulty, from Old English gyltiġ (“offending, guilty”); equivalent to guilt +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈɡɪl.ti/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪlti

Adjective

guilty (comparative guiltier or more guilty, superlative guiltiest or most guilty)

  1. Responsible for a dishonest act.
    He was guilty of cheating at cards.
  2. (law) Judged to have committed a crime.
    The guilty man was led away.
  3. Having a sense of guilt.
    Do you have a guilty conscience?
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing.
    • 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68:
      The numbers thin out the further we get from London, so I don't feel guilty when I remove my mask momentarily to scoff some of the snacks I'd bought at Marylebone.
  4. Blameworthy.
    I have a guilty secret.
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 71, in The History of Pendennis. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      Don’t you see that we have been playing a guilty game, and have been overreached […]
    • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate , New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, , →OCLC:
      At twilight in the summerv […] the mice come out. Theyv […] veat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling crumbs lavishly—the only lavishment of which he was ever guilty—on the floor.

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Noun

guilty (plural guilties)

  1. (law) A plea by a defendant who does not contest a charge.
  2. (law) A verdict of a judge or jury on a defendant judged to have committed a crime.
  3. One who is declared guilty of a crime.
    • 1997, David Brinkley, “June 5, 1983”, in Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion‎, →ISBN, page 32:
      The not guilties walked out and went to work if they had jobs; the guilties were hauled away to spend maybe thirty days on the county farm growing cabbage.
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