ACCUSE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Accuse

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/əkjˈuz/ Listen

verb

Accuse v. t. (past & past part. accused; pres. part. accusing)

To charge with, or declare to have committed, a crime or offense; (Law) To charge with an offense, judicially or by a public process; with of; as, to accuse one of a high crime or misdemeanor. "Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me." "We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms."

To charge with a fault; to blame; to censure. "Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."

To betray; to show. (R.)

Synonyms: To charge; blame; censure; reproach; criminate; indict; impeach; arraign. To Accuse, Charge, Impeach, Arraign. These words agree in bringing home to a person the imputation of wrongdoing. To accuse is a somewhat formal act, and is applied usually (though not exclusively) to crimes; as, to accuse of treason. Charge is the most generic. It may refer to a crime, a dereliction of duty, a fault, etc.; more commonly it refers to moral delinquencies; as, to charge with dishonesty or falsehood. To arraign is to bring (a person) before a tribunal for trial; as, to arraign one before a court or at the bar public opinion. To impeach is officially to charge with misbehavior in office; as, to impeach a minister of high crimes. Both impeach and arraign convey the idea of peculiar dignity or impressiveness.

noun

Accuse n. Accusation. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Accuse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Accuse" Quotes from Famous Books

... choice than the slave of sense between pleasure and pain? Is there less of constraint there for a pure will than here for a depraved will? Must one, by this imperative form given to the moral law, accuse man and humble him, and make of this law, which is the most sublime witness of our grandeur, the most crushing argument for our fragility? Was it possible with this imperative force to avoid that a prescription which man ...

— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Teresita was laughing her mocking little laugh that still had in it a maddening note of tenderness. Dade tried not to hear it; for so had she laughed at him, a week ago, and set his blood leaping towards his heart. He was not skilled in the ways of women, yet he did not accuse her of deliberate coquetry, as a man is prone to do under the smart of a hurt like his; for he sensed dimly that it was but the seeking sex-instinct of healthy youth that brightened her eyes and sent the laugh to her lips when she faced a man who pleased her; and if she were fickle, it ...

— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you, would never have been perpetrated. My rejected emeralds accuse me. Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering to some Foundling Asylum, ...

— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... here to-day!" she retorted with undiminished bitterness. "Hush, you say? Nay, but I will not be silent for you, for any! They may tear me limb from limb, but I will accuse them of this murder before God's throne. Coward! Parricide! Do you think I will ask mercy from them? Come, look on your work! See what the League have done—your holy League!—while you sat plotting with the ...

— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... for showing his resentment by neglecting to return the forgeries. One may notice in passing that when Chatterton, more than a year later, committed suicide there were not wanting a great many persons absurd enough to accuse Walpole of having driven him to his death—a contemptible suggestion. Yet the connoisseur's credit certainly suffers from the fact that he gave currency to a false account of the transaction in the hope of ...

— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

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