Word.ws English Dictionary

arraign

/əˈɹeɪn/

arraign verb: to officially charge someone in a court of law.

Verb

arraign (third-person singular simple present arraigns, present participle arraigning, simple past and past participle arraigned)

  1. (with-on, (archaic) for) To officially charge someone in a court of law.
    • He was arraigned in Washington, D.C., on the 25th of that month on charges of treason.
    • He will then be arraigned, at which point the specific charges will be unsealed.2023 March 30, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum, Kate Christobek, Nate Schweber, “Trump Is Indicted, Becoming First Ex-President to Face Criminal Charges”, in The New York Times...
  2. To call to account, or accuse, before the bar of reason, taste, or any other tribunal.
    • They will not dare to arraign you for want of knowledge.1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
    • It is not arrogance, but timidity, of which the Christian body should now be arraigned by the world.1832, [Isaac Taylor], Saturday Evening. […], London: Holdsworth and Ball, →OCLC

Noun

arraign (plural arraigns)

  1. Arraignment.
    • the clerk of the arraigns1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC
    • The clerk of the arraigns stood up1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

arraign meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

arraign in Tamil

நீதிமன்றத்துக்கு முன் குற்றம் சாட்டு, வெளிப்படையாகப் பழிசுமத்து, குற்றம் காண், மறுத்துக்கூறு, விளக்கம் தரும்படி கேள்

arraign in Bengali

charge someone in a court of law
অভিযুক্ত করা obhijukto kora

arraign in Malayalam

put on trial, indict, prosecute
കുറ്റപ്പെടുത്തുക, കുറ്റം ചാർത്തുക, കുറ്റാരോപണം നടത്തുക, പ്രതിചേർക്കുക, കുറ്റംചുമത്തുക, പരസ്യമായി ദോഷാരോപണം ചെയ്യുക
criticize, rebuke, admonish
കുറ്റപ്പെടുത്തുക, വിമർശിക്കുക, കഠിനവിമർശനം നടത്തുക, ശാസിക്കുക, താക്കീതു നല്കുക, ഭർത്സിക്കുക

arraign in Kannada

ಆರೋಪಿಸು, ನಿಂದಿಸು, ಆಪಾದಿಸು

Synonyms of arraign

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of arraign

Forms of arraign

Verb
third-person singular presentarraigns
present participlearraigning
past participlearraigned
pastarraigned
Noun
pluralarraigns

Origin of arraign

From Middle English areynen (“to interrogate, arraign, reprimand”), from Anglo-Norman areiner, arener, from Old French araisnier, areisnier, aresnier (“to speak to, address; accuse (in a law court)”) (whence modern French arraisonner (“to verify cargo, to arraign”)), from Vulgar Latin *arratiōnāre, from Latin adratiōnāre, from ad (“to”) + *ratiōnāre (“to reason, talk reasonably, talk”), from ratiō (“reason, reasoning, discourse”), from rat-, past-participle stem of rērī (“to reckon, calculate”). First attested in the late 14th century. Doublet of areason. About the -g- within the word, Etymonline and the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary both agree that it is present by hypercorrection and appears since the 16th century. The Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1986) however, provides two etymological links each, which are Old French aragnier and araigner. The Oxford English Dictionary (1885, 1989) did not support either of these hypotheses, but did attribute Old French arraigner, arainer to an unrelated obsolete sense and etymon.

Words formed from arraign

Words that rhyme with arraign

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about arraign

What does arraign mean?
Arraign means to officially charge someone in a court of law.
What is arraign in Tamil?
Arraign in Tamil is நீதிமன்றத்துக்கு முன் குற்றம் சாட்டு, வெளிப்படையாகப் பழிசுமத்து, குற்றம் காண். See Arraign meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is arraign?
Arraign can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce arraign?
Arraign is pronounced /əˈɹeɪn/.
What is the past tense of arraign?
The past tense of arraign is arraigned.

Words near arraign in the dictionary

  1. Arragonians
  2. arragonite
  3. arragonites
  4. arragonitic
  5. arrah
  6. arraign
  7. arraignable
  8. arraigned
  9. arraignee
  10. arraignees
  11. arraigner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arraign (page history and authors); arraign (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); arraign (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); arraign (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-arraign.wav.

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