Post by t-bob on Feb 9, 2019 11:19:03 GMT -5
INCULCATE
verb
1. to involve in a charge; incriminate.
2. to charge with fault; blame; accuse.
Quotes
Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol there in order to inculpateyou. -- Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Problem of Thor Bridge," The Strand Magazine, Volume 63, 1922 Their job was simply to get as much information as possible, which, along with corroborating evidence, would either inculpate the suspect or set him free. -- Douglas Starr, "The Interview," The New Yorker, December 9, 2013
Origin
Inculpate, like inflammable, is capable of two opposite meanings depending on whether you take in- to be a negative prefix (from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-) or an intensive prefix. If in- is the negative prefix, then inculpate means “unblamed, blameless,” the only meaning of the Latin inculpātus and a meaning that inculpate had in (and only in) 17th-century English. Likewise inflammable would mean “not flammable,” a very common mistake in modern English. The in- in inculpate and inflammable is in fact the intensive in-; Late Latin inculpāre means “to blame”; inflammāre means “to set on fire.” The Romans, too, were confused by the two different prefixes: inaudīre (in- here the intensive prefix) means “to catch the sound of, get wind of, hear”; its past participle inaudītus (in- here the negative prefix) means “unheard, unheard of, not listened to.” Inculpate in the sense “to blame” entered English in the late 18th century
verb
1. to involve in a charge; incriminate.
2. to charge with fault; blame; accuse.
Quotes
Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol there in order to inculpateyou. -- Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Problem of Thor Bridge," The Strand Magazine, Volume 63, 1922 Their job was simply to get as much information as possible, which, along with corroborating evidence, would either inculpate the suspect or set him free. -- Douglas Starr, "The Interview," The New Yorker, December 9, 2013
Origin
Inculpate, like inflammable, is capable of two opposite meanings depending on whether you take in- to be a negative prefix (from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-) or an intensive prefix. If in- is the negative prefix, then inculpate means “unblamed, blameless,” the only meaning of the Latin inculpātus and a meaning that inculpate had in (and only in) 17th-century English. Likewise inflammable would mean “not flammable,” a very common mistake in modern English. The in- in inculpate and inflammable is in fact the intensive in-; Late Latin inculpāre means “to blame”; inflammāre means “to set on fire.” The Romans, too, were confused by the two different prefixes: inaudīre (in- here the intensive prefix) means “to catch the sound of, get wind of, hear”; its past participle inaudītus (in- here the negative prefix) means “unheard, unheard of, not listened to.” Inculpate in the sense “to blame” entered English in the late 18th century