culpable homicide

Noun

culpable homicide (countable and uncountable, plural culpable homicides)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see culpable, homicide.
   • a. Culpable homicide is called murder when you mean to cause someone to die.2002, Les Vandor, Legal Counsel: Criminal Law - Frequently Asked Questions, →ISBN, page 28
   • Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender, while deprived of the power of self-control by grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of the person who gave the provocation […]2011, Krishan Vij, Textbook of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, →ISBN, page 205
2. Homicide which is culpable but does not rise to the level of murder; unlawful killing of a human being which does not constitute murder.
   • A charge of culpable homicide found relevant against both a shopkeeper and his servant, in respect that the former had culpably entrusted his servant with the charge of drugs which were sold in the shop, and the latter had culpably dispensed to a customer such an excessive dose of tartar emetic as...1868, Digest of Cases Decided in the Supreme Courts of Scotland, from 1800 to 1868, page 454
   • But it may amount to culpable homicide to cause the death of a living child, if any part of that child has been brought forth, though the child may not have breathed or been completely born.1895, The Indian Penal Code: With Commentary, by W. R. Hamilton, section 200, page 313