accused
/əˈkjuzd/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
noun/əˈkjuzəd/
accused is the simple past and past participle of accuse.
Meaning of accuse
Verb
accuse (third-person singular simple present accuses, present participle accusing, simple past and past participle accused)
- To find fault with, blame, censure.
- […] and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Romans 2:15
- To charge with having committed a crime or offence.
- For the U.S. President to be impeached, he must be accused of a high crime or misdemeanor.
- To make an accusation against someone.
- According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal...2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55
Noun
accused (plural accuseds or accused)
- The person charged with an offense; the defendant in a criminal case.
- The accused arrived at the Baoshan District Court in Shanghai in the morning and a tribunal officer told AFP that a verdict may be issued later on Monday, but it was up to the judge.2017 June 26, “Australia's Crown Resorts staff face trial in China”, in France 24, archived from the original on 26 Jun 2017
Adjective
accused (comparative more accused, superlative most accused)
- Having been accused; being the target of accusations.
- This power chiefly fell to the queen, and she was more accused than ever of too much leaning towards her own country; […]1883, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Landmarks of Recent History, 1770-1883, Walter Smith, pages 11–12
- Naples had an almost stronger preference for the interposition of Spain, while the great republic of Venice in the eyes of Italy stood accused of aspiring to bring the whole peninsula under its sway, […]1891, Charles Grant Robertson, Caesar Borgia: The Stanhope Essay for 1891, B.H. Blackwell, pages 8–9
Synonyms of accused
Antonyms
Forms of accused
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | accuseds |
| plural | accused |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more accused |
| superlative | most accused |
Origin of accused
* (noun): First attested in the 1590's. * From accuse (“blame”) + -ed
Words formed from accused
Words that rhyme with accused
Questions about accused
- What does accused mean?
- Accused means the person charged with an offense; the defendant in a criminal case.
- What is accused the simple past and past participle of?
- Accused is the simple past and past participle of accuse.
- What part of speech is accused?
- Accused can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce accused?
- Accused is pronounced /əˈkjuzd/ (US).
- What is the plural of accused?
- The plural of accused is accuseds.
Words near accused in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: accused (page history and authors); accuse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-accused.ogg.
Cite this entry: “accused.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/accused. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.