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Culpable   Listen
adjective
Culpable  adj.  
1.
Deserving censure; worthy of blame; faulty; immoral; criminal. "If he acts according to the best reason he hath, he is not culpable, though he be mistaken in his measures."
2.
Guilty; as, culpable of a crime. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Culpable" Quotes from Famous Books



... liberated from all his sins. By bathing in the sacred stream of the Ganges he will wash away his sins. All who die at Benares are sure to go to heaven. By repeating the Gayatri (a certain verse of the Rigveda addressed to the sun) a man is saved. "A brahman who holds the Veda in his memory is not culpable though he should destroy the three worlds"—so says the Code of Manu. The Tantras, or ritual works of modern Hinduism, abound in such prescriptions for sinners. "He who liberates a bull at the Aswamedika place of pilgrimage obtains ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... alchemist worthy of a visit, particularly as several inhabitants of Luton gravely assured me, that he had succeeded in discovering the Philosopher's Stone, and also the Universal Solvent. The reports about him would have rendered it culpable not to have hazarded anything for a personal interview. I learnt that he had been a man of fashion, and at one time largely concerned in adventures on the turf, but that for many years he had devoted himself to his present pursuits; while for some time past, he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various

... might only too probably affect their heads. Mine had already become quite indifferent to it, though it had not been so at first. These two men, however, had been only a week in the settlement, and I should have deemed myself highly culpable had I allowed them to swim a river on horseback, though I am sure both would have been ready enough to ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... the impression which the news of this defeat produced in London. The King was held blameable because not a single soldier commissioned by him had been found beside his daughter to draw the sword in her defence. This was attributed either to culpable negligence of his own affairs, or to the influence of the Spanish ambassador. Not Gondomar himself, who was too shrewd to act thus, but certainly his friends and Catholics generally, let their joy at this event be known. The citizens responded with manifestations that were directed against the King ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... realized about eight knots, six seems to be all that could usually be got from her. She was driven by a screw, the shaft being connected by gearing with the engines. The other defect was an oversight, yet a culpable one; her steering chains, instead of being led under her armored deck, were over it, exposed to an enemy's fire. She was therefore a ram that could only by a favorable chance overtake her prey, and was likely at any moment to lose the power ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed more ready to smile at him than ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... that duty, and the death of the person for whom he ought to provide ensued. If the death was the result of mere carelessness and without criminal intent, the offence would be manslaughter, provided the jury came to the conclusion that there had been culpable neglect of the duty cast upon the individual who had undertaken to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... practice, if at this pressing season their prospects were involved to the extent the learned counsel had pictured, why then, that he would so far bend his practice on this occasion, and they should be dismissed.' Now Peter, I must confess, here showed the most culpable ignorance in not knowing that a set of country fellows, put up in a jury box, would rather let every glade of corn rot in the ground, than give up what they always supposed so very respectable an ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... Less culpable certainly, and now pitied by all to whom d'Ache's death recalled the affair of Quesnay, Mme. Acquet was spending her last days in the conciergerie at Rouen. After the petition for a reprieve on account of ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... within Jackson's lines, whose services were lost to the army and to the country for the want of arms. The dangerous delay of the arrival of the troops, and with this, the failure of the arrival of the arms and munitions necessary to equip the men for service, had their beginning in the culpable negligence of the War Department at Washington, of which history has had occasion to complain. But a more immediate cause for the irreparable delay in the arrival of the stores for arming and equipping the troops is found in the conduct of the quartermaster who superintended ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... made by the police in reference to that attempt at murder, and we do expect that some member will ask a question on the subject in the House. Would such culpable quiescence have been allowed had not the unfortunate lady whose name we are unwilling to mention been the daughter of one of the colleagues of our present Prime Minister, the gentleman who fired the pistol another of them, and the presumed lover, who was fired at, also another? We think ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... was most culpable, sir," he said. "But when I looked in my desk for a blank, I found that I had none. Every day I intended going to the Prefecture to get a new supply, but every day something occurred to prevent me. And then came the day of ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... alleged that Montcalm in hastening to meet the British on an open plain, and thereby to decide in a single battle, the fate of a fertile Province nearly equal in extent to one-half of Europe, was not only forgetful of his usual caution, but acted with culpable temerity." ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... they maintained their objections. How many times have those whose activity was additionally stimulated by their interest, proposed measures which a few words might have checked; whilst the names of those whose culpable silence thus permitted the project to be matured, were immediately afterwards cited by their grateful coadjutors, as having sanctioned that which in their hearts they ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage

... the Virginia regiment was accused in the papers of drunkenness, and under the sting of that accusation Washington declared war on the publicans. He whipped his men when they became drunk, kept them away from the ordinaries, and even closed by force one tavern which was especially culpable. "Were it not too tedious," he wrote the governor, "I cou'd give your Honor such instances of the villainous Behavior of those Tippling House-keepers, as ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... more gently, assured him that he had nothing to blame himself for, and even expressed some pity for Florent. But he was really very culpable, she said, and if he had had more money he would probably have perpetrated greater follies. Gradually she gave her husband to understand that it was impossible matters could have had any other termination, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... "The Cabinet is gravely culpable. It forgot that in times like ours there are precipices right and left and that it does not do to govern too near to the edge. It says to itself: 'It is only a riot,' and it almost rejoices at the outbreak. It ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... betrayed, and he was powerless to prevent it. Besides, his self-love smarted, chagrin made eyes at him; and, more than all else, he recognized his own share in the Englishman's fall from grace. It had been innocent mischief on his part, true, but nevertheless he stood culpable. He had no business to talk to a woman he did not know. The more he studied the aspects of the situation the more whimsical it grew. He was the prime cause of a king losing his throne, of a man losing his honor, of a princess becoming ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... Proud, have hung upon the western frontiers, for the purpose of preying upon the Indians. If government itself be not to blame, for want of good faith towards this miserable race, is it not highly culpable for not having, by the strong arm of physical power, enforced the salutary laws, which from time to time, have been enacted for their protection? Impartial posterity will, we apprehend, answer this ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... Strether had worked it all out. "It wasn't for you they came out, but for me. It wasn't to see for themselves what you're doing, but what I'm doing. The first branch of their curiosity was inevitably destined, under my culpable delay, to give way to the second; and it's on the second that, if I may use the expression and you don't mind my marking the invidious fact, they've been of late exclusively perched. When Sarah sailed it was me, in other ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... overthrow the barriers which for the good of my subjects I had raised to protect them from the corrupt influences of French infidelity? Has be ordered the dissemination of obscene and ungodly books? O my God! How culpable have I been to the trust which thou hast placed in my hands! I feel my guilt; I have sinned in the excess of my grief. But I will conquer my weak heart. Go in peace, father. I will ponder your words, and to-morrow you shall hear ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... Ferdinand and Queen Isabella temporized with Columbus. It was hard, indeed, for a man burning up with a great and glorious plan to be kept so long from executing it; but a glance into Spanish affairs at the moment when the man brought his idea into Spain will show that its rulers were not so culpable after all. We have already seen how long and how vigorously the sovereigns were pushing the Moorish war; but this was not their only anxiety. Spain's finances, owing to the misrule of previous kings, were in a very bad way. To get money, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... of Katherine's injury soon spread about the college, it was reported merely as one of those unintentional happenings for which no one was actually culpable. The owners of cherished cars were canny enough to realize that to capitalize the accident meant jeopardy to their privileges. All knew that a certain important college for girls had recently banned cars. None were anxious that ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... sir. . . . Many premises are lacking in order to decide who is the culpable party. . . . When the war is ended they will have to . . . will have to . . ." And he closed his eyes overcome by the effort. Desnoyers left the dead man, thinking to himself. Poor fellow! He was placing the hour of justice at the termination ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... pledge of her indestructible personality, God's impregnable defence reared around the citadel of her being, than to consider it the artificial rampart flung up by an insurgent egotism. In like manner, it is a misrepresentation of the facts to assert the culpable selfishness of the faith in a future life as a demanded reward for fidelity and merit here. No one demands immortality as pay for acquired desert. It is modestly looked for as a free boon from the God who freely gave the present and who has by a thousand ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... an awful accident, but I am almost as culpable as you, for I left the cartridges in the gun. Anyhow, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... every wish was gratified; blessed in the affections of the most generous man as a husband, what could induce me to commit such a crime? Depraved indeed must that mind be that under such circumstances could be so culpable. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... garrison, but to have made a private soldier of that garrison accessary to his delinquency, it is more than probable his stern habits of military discipline would have caused him to overlook the offence of the soldier, in deeper indignation at the conduct of the infinitely more culpable officer; but not one word did he credit of a statement, which he assumed to have been got up by the prisoner with the mere view of shielding himself from punishment: and when to these suspicions of his fidelity was attached the fact of the introduction of his alarming visitor, it must be confessed ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... was of opinion that the marriage contract between Michael Feydy and Mademoiselle de Dauple should be declared void, because there was culpable carelessness on the father's part and on the girl's part alike. He thought the marriage of Michael Feydy and Anne Allard binding, because it had been contracted in good faith. Jacques de Verre he absolved from all blame, and was of opinion that since Madame de Verre had signed the marriage-contract ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... foresight to settle the matter on a firm basis while it was yet time. Were the old form of voting by three chambers intended, it was folly to make the popular one as numerous as the other two together. Were a new form of National Assembly, with only one chamber, to be brought into being, it was culpable to allow the old orders to misunderstand their fall from power. "We are an essential part of the monarchy," said the nobles. "We are twenty-three twenty-fourths of the nation, and the more useful part at that," ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... correspondence of this kind with any of the keepers; and when I come to the Lighthouse, instead of having the satisfaction to meet them with approbation, it is distressing when one is obliged to put on a most angry countenance and demeanour; but from such culpable negligence as you have shown there is no avoiding it. I hold it as a fixed maxim that, when a man or a family put on a slovenly appearance in their houses, stairs, and lanterns, I always find their reflectors, burners, windows, and light in general, ill attended ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... suya. (Movimiento de reprobacin en Mara; protesta viva de Len con mirada y gesto.) Yo no lo hice... me repugnaba. Mi complicidad consisti en que pude evitar el fraude, y 140 no lo evit... por el provecho momentneo que de l tuve. Mi aturdimiento fue causa de que el menos culpable, yo, apareciese ms ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos

... conclusion: Norris, having broken bounds, and got into a disgraceful fray, was afraid that the matter would come to my ears. It was absolutely necessary for him to procure ten pounds to buy the silence of this man; my own very culpable carelessness, which I most deeply regret, left the note on the table, and the temptation was ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... more culpable in not doing his duty than in the mischief he occasioned, for he certainly oftener misled the Queen by his silence than ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... His first call of any importance was on the Grand Duke of Tuscany, formerly so much in the good graces of the Commonwealth (Vol. IV. pp. 483-485), but whom Cromwell, after looking more into matters, had found culpable. Blake's demands were for heavy money-damages on account of English ships taken by Prince Rupert in 1650, and sold in Tuscan ports, and also on account of English ships ordered out of Leghorn harbour in March 1653, so that they fell into the hands of the Dutch. There was the utmost consternation ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... after him. Nay, more than this, all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to the weight of human weariness in a most woful and culpable manner. There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men, which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point out the perfect words, than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumber ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... to enforce this order, he forbade all citizens of the United States to give aid to, or have any intercourse with, any such vessels or their crews. War measures were taken both by the Federal and State Governments. As usual, the popular wrath was vented upon the least culpable of the people responsible for the condition of the "Chesapeake." Commodore Barren was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to five years' suspension from the service, without pay. The cool judgment of later years perceives ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... the rector had finished, "that is my observation. Most of them are driven to the life, and held in it, of course, by a remorseless civilization. Individuals may be culpable, Mr. Hodder—are culpable. But we cannot put the whole ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... society, shall we blame her? If she found for the present enough of content in the soft sunshine, the fragrant flowers, her baby, and her own home, with the intermittent companionship of the one man she had chosen to spend her life with, shall we consider her highly culpable, deficient in the moral or social sense? All the rest was much ado about nothing to Adelle, and, perhaps, as far as Bellevue went,—and a good deal like it in life elsewhere,—Adelle was not far wrong ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... sighed together. Poor Owen! It was most fortunate for his family that the Jury had taken so lenient a view of the case ... otherwise ...! They were quite certain in their own minds that poor Owen had been culpable, if not guilty. They were married six months later. The Directoire hats were out of date, of course, but Louis Quinze, with Watteau trimmings suited the six bridesmaids marvellously, and the "Non Angli ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... his proper due. Working myself into a fury,, I enumerated his sins to him; he had lost a goat at Muhalleh, he had permitted Khamisi to desert with valuable property at Imbiki; he had frequently shown culpable negligence in not looking after the donkeys, permitting them to be tied up at night without seeing that they had water, and in the mornings, when about to march, he preferred to sleep until 7 o'clock, rather ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... that Eve had demoralized him. Eve to-day whines that Adam and his war have demoralized her. They are both wrong and both culpable. And as in the old biblical story, God will hold both Adam and Eve responsible and both shall be driven from the Garden of Eden, our great modern civilization that is gaining all save honor, that keystone of the arch without which it must ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... world? Have we no duties? For what is our wealth, our knowledge, our time given us, but to improve for our own and for the eternal welfare of those around us? Come then, my sister, we have both been deceived—let us endeavor not to be culpable." ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... never yet refused to follow your advice, but where my own peace of mind was so nearly concerned, as to have made me culpable, had ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... Messina: ye shall vnderstand that the tumult being once ceassed, and diuerse of the chefe offenders in the late commotion put to death, king Tancred shortlie after came thither, and sought to auoid all suspicion out of king Richards head, that he might conceiue of him for being in anie wise culpable in that which his subiects of Messina had attempted against him, and therefore hauing recouered monie of his freends, he restored vnto king Richard the dowrie of his sister quene Joane, and further offered vnto him to ioine in new ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (6 of 12) - Richard the First • Raphael Holinshed

... the most complete naval victory ever gained. It was so indeed at that time,—the most complete, but not the most decisive, as it perhaps might have been. The French, according to Hoste, lost not even a boat, much less a ship, which, if true, makes yet more culpable the sluggishness of the pursuit; while the allies fled, casting sixteen of their ships ashore and burning them in sight of the enemy, who pursued as far as the Downs. The English indeed give the allied loss ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... offence the curriers of the town had borne the principal share, and they were therefore principally marked out for punishment. But, fortunately for them, Arlette, the daughter of one Verpray, the most culpable of the number, met the offended Duke while riding through the street, and with her beauty so fascinated him, that she not only obtained the pardon of her father and his associates, but became his mistress, and continued so ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... chapter. In this narrative it is said that Neot often rebuked Alfred in the severest terms for his sinful course of life, predicting the most fatal consequences if he did not reform, and using language which only a very culpable degree of remissness and irregularity could justify. "You glory," said he, one day, when addressing the king, "in your pride and power, and are determined and obdurate in your iniquity. But there is a terrible retribution in store for you. I entreat you to listen to my counsels, amend ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... all barriers before it. Her mind went over to Dr. Beswick's side of the question, and she saw her success in some cases as the mere effect on the nervous system. In the bitterness of something like despair she thought herself a deluded and culpable enthusiast, worthy of ridicule, of contempt, of condemnation. There were no longer any oscillations of her mind toward the old belief; the foundations of sand had been swept away, and there was no space to make a reconstruction. Scarcely could she pray; unbelief tardily admitted threatened to ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... have not forgiven our daughter. Be not too hasty in your judgment. However culpable she may appear, she has been as ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... has three special significations; for sometimes it is used to express outrage, the proper word for which—contumely—is derived from the verb 'to contemn,' and so is equivalent to the Greek 'ubris': sometimes it means culpable negligence, as where damage is said to be done (as in the lex Aquilia) 'with injury,' where it is equivalent to the Greek 'adikema'; and sometimes iniquity and injustice, which the Greeks express by 'adikia'; thus a litigant is said to have received an 'injury' when the praetor or judge delivers ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... more unexpected than this severe disaster. The public had confidently anticipated a successful campaign, and could not believe, that the general who had been unfortunate, had not been culpable. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... undeserving of his kindest and most affectionate attention, probably in 1862. As to the date, an almanack informs me that the Prince married a Danish Princess in March 1863, which looks like a most culpable neglect of the predictions of our national astrologer. Again, in May 1870, when Saturn was stationary in the ascending degree, the Prince ought to have been injured by a horse, and also to have received a blow on the left side of the head, near the ear; but reprehensibly omitted both these ceremonies. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... of Jesus! Even among His own disciples, how forbearingly He endured their blindness, their misconceptions and hardness of heart! Philip had been for three years with Him, yet he had "not known Him!"—all that time he had remained in strange and culpable ignorance of his Lord's dignity and glory. See how tenderly Jesus bears with him; giving him nothing in reply for his confession of ignorance but unparalleled promises of grace! Peter, the honored and trusted, becomes a renegade and a coward. Justly might ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... hasn't eloped, or done anything culpable. But there is no use concealing from you, as I have told you so much, that she has hurt me to the quick. Not that she has been unkind, or rude, or disagreeable. Quite the contrary. And that's the worst of it, for I prayed to heaven that there might ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... parishioners had done. I am glad to be able to suppose that he condemns rather than encourages such conduct. A Protestant friend of mine who does not entertain the same respect for the Roman clergy that I do, advances the opinion that the displeasure of the curate was not on account of the culpable attempt of some of his flock but on account of its failure. However, I must add, on my reputation as a faithful narrator, that nothing has yet happened to confirm ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... so much the wretch who had struck his brother down as the light and empty fool who had trifled with that silly hoyden. The follies that seemed so amusing and resultless in their time had ripened to this bitter effect, and he knew that he, and not she, was mainly culpable. Her self-betrayal, however it came about, was proof that they were more serious with her than with him, and he could not plead to himself even the poor excuse that his fancy had been caught. Amidst the anguish of his self-condemnation the need to conceal what ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... hard on the chief," spoke up Edward. "He intended no wrong, and, judging from his actions, I take it, he thought he was doing her a great kindness by securing her from some imagined danger. What say you, Jane? is the chief culpable ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... trade would soon reduce the resentments of poets into mere shadow-fights in the comparison. Or is wealth the only rational object of human interest? Or even if this were admitted, has the poet no property in his works? Or is it a rare, or culpable case, that he who serves at the altar of the Muses, should be compelled to derive his maintenance from the altar, when too he has perhaps deliberately abandoned the fairest prospects of rank and opulence ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... place, and so heedlessly, that dogs might be seen tearing portions from the earth. What truth there may have been at the root of these reports, I cannot tell; but it is probable they arose from some culpable carelessness of the servants. At all events, they were believed in the neighbourhood, occupied by those inhabitants of the city readiest to receive and dwell upon anything revolting. But what pushed the indignation beyond the extreme ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... the lowest canaille and the vilest estaminets of the metropolis), that a notorious personage—why should we hesitate to mention the name of the Prince John Thomas Napoleon?—has entered France with culpable intentions, and revolutionary views. The Moniteur of this morning, however, confirms the disgraceful fact. A pretender is on our shores; an armed assassin is threatening our peaceful liberties; a wandering, homeless cut-throat is robbing on our highways; and the punishment of his ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the sheep should bleat and cry in the belly of him that had eaten it, and so happed it that, in the presence of all the people, the sheep cried and bleated in the belly of him that had stolen it. And the man that was culpable repented him of his trespass, and the others from then forthon kept them from stealing of ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... longer the enraptured admirer of Bianca; I no longer hung in ecstasy on the tones of her voice, nor drank in with insatiate gaze the beauty of her countenance. Her very smiles ceased to delight me, for I felt culpable in having won them. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... careful; and now that M. de Mussidan is aware that his sweet, pure daughter has had a lover, he will be only too happy to accept the Marquis de Croisenois as his son-in-law." Tantaine believed that Sabine was more culpable than she really had been, for the idea of pure and honorable love had ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... human being who has made me love God. I had renounced everything before I knew you; why deprive me of the only ray of light that Providence has spared me? If it is on account of fear, what have I done to inspire it? If it is on account of dislike, in what respect am I culpable? If it is on account of pity and because I suffer, you are mistaken in supposing that I can cure myself; it might have been done, perhaps, two months ago; but I preferred to see you and to suffer, and I do not repent, whatever may come of it. The only misfortune ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... chance. It would be culpable to allow such a girl to enter on the world with such a stigma as being expelled from school would mean. You must give her a chance, sir. I hope you will not ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... morning, and seldom return to them before night. Their children are then left in or about their solitary camps, having many times no adult with them; the elder children then have the care of the younger. Those who are old enough gather wood for fuel; nor is stealing it thought a crime. By the culpable neglect of the parents in this respect, the children are often exposed to accidents by fire; and melancholy instances of children being burnt and scalded to death, are not unfrequent. The author knows one poor woman, two of whose ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... which is afterwards possible, yet individual records are kept, and excellence receives distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs. It is not, however, policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion, when not deeply culpable, to handicap the future careers of young men, and all who have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have most liking for. Having selected this, they enter upon it as apprentices. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... though not wholly involuntary, bears the image of the involuntary, and is therefore the more excusable of the two, and should receive a gentler punishment. The act of him who nurses his wrath is more voluntary, and therefore more culpable. The degree of culpability depends on the presence or absence of intention, to which the degree of punishment should correspond. For the first kind of murder, that which is done on a momentary impulse, let two years' exile be the penalty; ...
— Laws • Plato

... her more vivid emotions, her more voluble fancy, as well as her mere physical weakness and weariness, have been to her, in all ages, a special source of temptation; which it is to her honour that she has resisted so much better than the physically stronger, and therefore more culpable, man. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... sinister nature. The predetermined adversary, on the other hand, can have been governed by no venial motive whatever. The intentions of the first may be upright, as they may on the contrary be culpable. The views of the last cannot be upright, and must be culpable. But the truth is, that these papers are not addressed to persons falling under either of these characters. They solicit the attention of those only, who add to a sincere zeal for the happiness of their country, a temper ...
— The Federalist Papers

... of every copy in their keeping, whether of their own manufacture or otherwise; and besides this, to a fine of one dollar a sheet upon the same, of which one moiety goes to the author, and the residue to the government. Why should it be culpable to steal from a resident, and laudable to do the same thing with a stranger? If a foreign mechanic exports his goods, they are as safe in New York, as the wealth of John Jacob Astor; but no kind of mercy is shown to the product of a foreigner's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... Aughacashel among the lawless associates with whom he had so foolishly looked for safety, he had completely lost his fortitude and power of endurance; he was aware that he was doing what was in every sense culpable, and he then could not but look on himself as a murderer flying from justice; but now he had learned to see what was really criminal in what he had done, and what was venial; and though the last five months had ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... officer.] "As soon as I can get all the facts together," [he writes on December 10,] "I am going to make a great turmoil about our outbreak of diphtheria—and see whether I cannot get our happy-go-lucky local government mended." [As usual, the epidemic was due to culpable negligence. In the construction of some drains, too small a pipe was laid down. The sewage could not escape, and flooded back in a low-lying part of Kilburn. Diphtheria soon broke out close by. While it was raging there, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... not with the contented looks of a conceited woman, but with the calm, stern eyes of a critic examining a work of art—"no, my dear mistress of ceremonies, we shall take good care not to raise a hue and cry about it. And Mr. Himmel is not so culpable, after all, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were going to stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high, into her native skies, 'beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if not culpable. I can bear much; but not too much. What spell was on me when I came into this house this day, I don't know; but I had a presentiment—a dark presentiment,' said Mrs Chick, with a shiver, 'that something was going to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... had been offered to him both at school and at Oxford, he had, in both instances, declined the offer, guessing, perhaps, that with such a mind as his, the acquisition of mental furniture would be but labour lost. By the tender mercy however, or by the culpable negligence of college dignitaries and examining chaplains, he had found his way into the clerical profession, and had undergone the imposition of episcopal hands, which was rather an imposition on the public than on him. Yet he lacked not talent of some kind; he was a good hand ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various

... Israel is, in the preceding verses (6, 8, 11,) the standing expression, while Judah is designated as treacherous, ver. 8-11. The measure of guilt is determined by the measure of grace. The relation of the Lord to Judah was closer, and hence, her apostacy was so much the more culpable. Farther—A detailed announcement of salvation for Judah would here not be suitable, inasmuch as no threatening preceded; and ver. 18 ("In those days, the house of Judah shall come by the side of [literally, 'over'] the house of Israel," according to which the return of Judah ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... of Bergen. But glowing with rage, the King commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death, who had ventured to dance, with the queen; so disgraced the Empress, and insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... young lady's champion against her chosen husband. Besides, you have seen them only once. The young lady has become your sister's friend; and I wonder that your sister, even on her behalf, has not checked you in this irrational and culpable fancy.' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... coquetry he knew her to be—she had been so from a child; and though this was culpable in a way, he and most others had made more than due allowance, because mother-care and loving surveillance had been withdrawn so soon. For years she had been the spoiled darling of her father and brothers until her father married again; and then it had been too late to control her. The ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the power of | their own countries amongst other nations, | better again and more worthy must that | aspiring be which seeketh the | amplification of the power and kingdom of | mankind over the world; the rather because | the other two prosecutions are ever | culpable of much perturbation and | injustice; but this is a work, truly | divine which cometh IN AURA LENI {51} | 51. 1 Kings 19,12 (Vulgata) without noise or observation{52}. | 52. St Luke 17,20: | Authorized Version: And when he was The access also to this work hath been ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... all the prospects of his life were at stake, decided to play a waiting game. In spite of their culpable motive, the men outside were serving as his aides in the crucial moment. They were demanding information which the usurer ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... charged with timidity afterwards, in making no bold attempt on the town. It was said, that the officer who means to act on the offensive, where difficulties must be surmounted, ought to display some courage; and that too much timidity in war is often as culpable as too much temerity. Great caution he indeed used for saving his men, for excepting those who fell by the sword in fort Moosa, he lost more men by sickness than by the hands of the enemy. Though the disaster ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... consolation in this case of severe distress? That it was Moggy Salisbury who gave the cruel blow, was a fact completely substantiated by evidence; but that it was Smallbones who held the dog, and who thereby became a participator, and therefore equally culpable, was a surmise to which the insinuations of the corporal had given all the authority of direct evidence. And, as Mr Vanslyperken felt that Moggy was not only out of his power, but even if in his power, that he dare not retaliate upon her, for reasons which we have ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... discovery had taken away some of her sincerity, and inspired her with the sense of a necessity for self-defence. Already, and for the first time in her life, she was having recourse to one of the commonest, and, surely, one of the least culpable, of the crafts and tricks of womanhood, she was trying not to betray her love to the man who, so far as she knew, had not thought of ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... kidneys. Although six inches long and of the volume of a goose feather, this branch remained five months in the pelvis without causing any particular inconvenience, and was finally discharged by the rectum. Brignatelli mentions the case of a woman who, in culpable practices, introduced the stalk of a reed into her uterus. She suffered no inconvenience until the next menstrual epoch which was accompanied by violent pains. She presented the appearance of one in the pains ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... told him all that she had heard from her father. She frankly confessed her culpable ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... the physical laws of good and evil. A cat who strangles another will not be more culpable than a man who kills his fellow men. My dear Cat, the great Hobbes never reasoned more clearly than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various

... may be their source; not to yield but to good arguments. Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority for persuasion, in wishing ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... acting a culpable part towards my country, towards the age in which I live, and towards myself, if I were longer to keep secret the wonderful discovery which ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... equally culpable. The sincerity of his anguish, the depth of his despair, I remembered with some tendencies to gratitude. Yet was he not precipitate? Was the conjecture that my part was played by some mimic so utterly untenable? Instances of this faculty are common. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... wandered to Mr. Harry Hawk. The villain! The scoundrel! What business had he to betray me? Well, I could settle with him. The man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is justly disliked by society; so the woman Muspratt, culpable as she was, was safe from me. But what of the man Hawk? There no such considerations swayed me. I would interview the man Hawk. I would give him the most hectic ten minutes of his career. I would say things to him the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... himself up at the words like one stung. "No, no! not a murderer!" he cried; "not quite as bad as a murderer! It wouldn't be murder, surely. It would be accidental homicide— unintentional, unwilled—a terrible result of most culpable carelessness, of course; but it wouldn't be quite murder; don't call it murder. I can't allow that. Not that name by any means. . . .Though to the end of your life, Eustace, if you were to kill a man so, you'd never ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... Necker was false, then the Assembly are in the highest degree culpable for having forced the king to accept as his minister, and, since the king's deposition, for having employed as their minister, a man who had been capable of abusing so notoriously the confidence of his master and their own: in a matter, too, of the highest moment, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Mr. Smuts, informed the Acting British Agent, Mr. Fraser, that it would be better to bring a charge against Policeman Jones, for "culpable homicide" than for murder, but that he considered the chance of his conviction by a Boer jury to be very small. The word "culpable," says Webster (English Dictionary) is "applied to acts which have not the gravity of crime." In this instance, it made Jones' ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... is to exculpate his enmity against God, and opposition to his law and gospel. To suppose his enmity and opposition to be the effect of divine influence, is to excuse them. Blame rests with the efficient. The creature cannot be culpable, because he is what God made him; or while he remains what he was made of God. To denominate either temper or conduct morally good or evil, consent is necessary, to suppose consent, in the creature, to be the effect of almighty power operating ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... now be doubted. We know why Porter withheld the largest and freshest corps in the command from the fights, while its eleven thousand men were within sight of the battles; but why was the Sixth corps delayed? Some one was equally culpable with Porter. Was it worse to keep a corps out of the fight, when on the field, than to keep another corps off from the field altogether without any good reason? There can be but one question—who was responsible for the ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... Westaby Jones, who was unmannerly enough to look pleased. I have also corresponded with the railway company, claiming damages on the grounds of culpable negligence. Unfortunately they require more evidence than I am prepared to supply of the reasonable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various

... (Eccl. Pol. vi. 4-15), "not to strike them with the mortal wound of excommunication, but to stay them rather from running desperately headlong into their own harm, and not to sever from Holy Communion any but such as are either found culpable by their own confession, or have been convicted in some public Court." The mode of the Curate's action was intended by the rubric to be admonition previous and private. The first paragraph indicates the duty of the people, not of the Curate, giving him the opportunity of admonition, ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... required a nurse, the alleviation proved to be inconsiderable—as Mr. Runacles would have delighted to point out to his wife, had she remained within earshot. As it was, he took infinite pains to select a suitable nurse, and forthwith neglected the child entirely—a course of conduct which was not so culpable as might be supposed, since (with the sole exception of Mrs. Runacles) he had never been known to err in choosing a subordinate. In times of peace he gave himself up to studying the mathematics, in which he was a proficient, and to the designing of such curious toys as sundials, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... calculated to recommend the use of it. For Aristotle there informs us, "that Sophocles alone of all the Grecian writers, made the CHORUS conducive to the progress of the fable: not only even Euripides being culpable in this instance; but other writers, after the example of Agathon, introducing Odes as little to the purpose, as if they had borrowed whole scenes from ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... like, frequently used by the best speakers, and not seldom even by sacred writers) do lie very near upon the confines of jocularity, and are not easily differenced from those sallies of wit wherein the lepid way doth consist: so that were this wholly culpable, it would be matter of scruple whether one hath committed a fault or no when he meant only to play the orator or the poet; and hard surely it would be to find a judge who could precisely set out the difference between a ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... himself of any technicality in her confession to betray her. She was, nevertheless, determined that her confession should be technically perfect. She went into the confessional to confess her sins, and one of the sins she was going to confess was her culpable negligence regarding the application of her money. There were other sins. She had examined her conscience, and had discovered many small ones. She had lost her temper last night, and her temper had ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... rule,' the culpable parents were forced to humble themselves before the whole congregation, or else expose their innocent child to the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... amused himself, thinking he was asleep, by playing with his penis until he had an emission. A.N. hailed the occasion with keen joy—he caustically argued that he experienced the pleasure without being culpable in its production! Then on 'coming to himself' he would agonize over his vice, remembering, for example, that, while he had rejoiced in what had been done, the very cousin who some time before used to share his sin was genuinely annoyed at the same uncle's attentions ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis



Words linked to "Culpable" :   blamable, blameworthy, culpableness, culpable negligence



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