definition of the word accuse

by the Wiktionnary

Part or all of this page has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

< Middle English < Old French acuser, French accuser < Latin accusare (“‘to call to account, accuse’”) < ad (“‘to’”) + causa (“‘cause, reason, account, lawsuit’”). Compare cause.

enPR: əkyo͞ozʹ, IPA: /əˈkjuːz/, SAMPA: /@"kju:z/
Rhymes: -uːz

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Infinitive
to accuse

Third person singular
accuses

Simple past
accused

Past participle
accused

Present participle
accusing

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

(transitive) To find fault with or attribute blame to.
(transitive) To charge with, or declare to have committed, a crime or offense.
(transitive, law) To charge with an offense, judicially or by a public process; construed with of.

For the U.S. President to be impeached, he must be accused of a high crime or misdemeanor.
- Acts of the Apostles 24:13,
  
  Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.
- Thomas Babington Macaulay,
  
  We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms.
(transitive) To charge with a fault; to blame; to censure.
- Epistle to the Romans 2:15,
  
  Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

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.

(legal): charge; indict; impeach; arraign
(): blame; censure; reproach; criminate;

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