criminate
criminate verb: to accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.
Verb
criminate (third-person singular simple present criminates, present participle criminating, simple past and past participle criminated)
- To accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.
- ‘I am now under confinement in this place for debt; but if you obtain […] a condition from the judge that what I reveal shall not criminate myself, I will make discoveries that shall confound that same Marquis […].’1791, Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, Penguin, published 1999, page 331
- In Germany, I had heard little of this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed to the stories related once or twice about them in Carlsruhe than one does to tales about ogres. But here in their very haunts, I learnt the full amount of the terror they inspired. No one would be legally...1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman
- Synonyms:
- arraign, charge, incriminate, accriminate, accuse, appeach, becry, tax, have up, inculpate
- To rebuke or censure (someone).
Adjective
criminate (comparative more criminate, superlative most criminate)
- Criminated.
- If this bee a crime to call Vanitie, Vanitie: the wisest man that euer was before Christ was herein criminate, not when hee strayed, but when hee repented.(Can we date this quote?), H. Smith, Sermon
Synonyms of criminate
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of criminate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | criminates |
| present participle | criminating |
| past participle | criminated |
| past | criminated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more criminate |
| superlative | most criminate |
Origin of criminate
First attested circa 1591; borrowed from Latin crīminātus, perfect passive participle of crīminō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
Words formed from criminate
Questions about criminate
- What does criminate mean?
- Criminate means to accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.
- What part of speech is criminate?
- Criminate can be a verb or an adjective.
- What is the past tense of criminate?
- The past tense of criminate is criminated.
Words near criminate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: criminate (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “criminate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/criminate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.