culpability
noun
cul·pa·bil·i·ty
ˌkəl-pə-ˈbi-lə-tē 
: responsibility for wrongdoing or failure : the quality or state of being culpable
moral/legal/criminal culpability
He refuses to acknowledge his own culpability.
Culpability for our failure to reduce petroleum imports falls across the political spectrum.—
Gregg Easterbrook
Gregg EasterbrookExamples of culpability in a Sentence
cannot find culpability where there is neither knowledge that a crime has been committed nor evidence of intent to commit a crime
Recent Examples on the Web
But unlike the billions of other web-using inhabitants of planet Earth, the 72-year-old Canter feels an ever-so-slight twinge of culpability for all that digital junk that rockets across the internet each day.
—Johnny Dodd, PEOPLE, 6 Sep. 2025
Naming an interstate war based on the state in which the war is fought – while omitting the name of outside instigators – implies the culpability of that state.
—Esther Brito Ruiz, The Conversation, 5 Sep. 2025
Wearing a Loro Piana sweater on a yacht that’s strategically anchored in international waters so as to avoid any criminal financial culpability.
—Madeline Goetz, New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2025
Playground operators can be held responsible for unsafe, unmaintained equipment—although damages tend to be much smaller than the United States—but courts reject culpability for injuries that happen as a part of normal playground use.
—Carrie Lukas, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for culpability
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Johnny Dodd, PEOPLE, 6 Sep. 2025
Naming an interstate war based on the state in which the war is fought – while omitting the name of outside instigators – implies the culpability of that state.
—Esther Brito Ruiz, The Conversation, 5 Sep. 2025
Wearing a Loro Piana sweater on a yacht that’s strategically anchored in international waters so as to avoid any criminal financial culpability.
—Madeline Goetz, New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2025
Playground operators can be held responsible for unsafe, unmaintained equipment—although damages tend to be much smaller than the United States—but courts reject culpability for injuries that happen as a part of normal playground use.
—Carrie Lukas, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for culpability
Cite this Entry
“Culpability.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culpability. Accessed 15 Sep. 2025.
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