accuse
/əˈkjuz/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.71 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[…] and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."
- "We are accused of having persuaded Austria and Sardinia to lay down their arms when their differences might have involved the Powers of Europe in contention."
- "For the U.S. President to be impeached, he must be accused of a high crime or misdemeanor."
- "Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me."
- "Ting Ling had disappeared from public life in 1958. She was accused of being a "Rightist" and was sent to a farm in Hei-lung-chiang Province in remote northeast China, worked there twelve years raising chickens, was in prison five years (1970-1975), and began to live in a village in Shansi in 1975."
- "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 battle."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Proto-Italic *kaussā Old Latin caussa Latin causa Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin accūsārelbor. Old French acuserbor. Middle English acusen English accuse First attested around 1300. From Middle English acusen, from Old French acuser, from Latin accūsō (“to call to account, accuse”), from ad (“to”) + causa (“cause, lawsuit, reason”). Akin to cause. Displaced native English bewray and Old English sċyldan.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: acusen, acuser, accūsō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈkjuz/
- British English: /əˈkjuːz/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.
Inflected Forms
accuses (present, singular)
accusing (participle, present)
accused (participle, past)
accused (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
accused (first person, past)
accusest (archaic, present)
accused (past, second person)
accusedst (archaic, past)
accuseth (archaic, present)
accused (past, singular)