culpa

See also: culpá and culpă

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkʊlpə/, /ˈkʌlpə/
• Rhymes: -ʊlpə, -ʌlpə
• Homophone: kalpa (one pronunciation)

Noun

culpa (plural culpae)

1. (Ancient Rome, law) Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart.
   • 1849, James G. Butler, A Summary of the Roman Civil Law:

     Every actual delict presupposes a dolus or culpa, with the concomitant consciousness and prepense

Related terms

• culpa lata
• culpa levis
• felix culpa
• mea culpa
• nostra culpa
• tua culpa

Translations

negligence or fault

• Finnish: tuottamus (fi)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “culpa”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• capul

Aragonese

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

Noun

culpa f (plural culpas)

1. blame, fault

Further reading

• Bal Palazios, Santiago (2002), “culpa”, in Dizionario breu de a luenga aragonesa, Zaragoza, →ISBN

Catalan

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Northern, Balearic, Central) [ˈkul.pə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia, Northwestern) [ˈkul.pa]

Noun

culpa f (plural culpes)

1. fault, blame
2. guilt

Derived terms

• per culpa de

Related terms

• culpable
• culpar
• disculpar
• exculpar
• inculpar

Further reading

• “culpa”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

Etymology 2

Verb

culpa

1. inflection of culpar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Galician

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkulpa/ [ˈkul.pɐ]
• Rhymes: -ulpa
• Hyphenation: cul‧pa

Etymology 1

From Old Galician-Portuguese culpa, a learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

Noun

culpa f (plural culpas)

1. blame, guilt

   A culpa morre solteira (proverb) ― Guilt dies unmarried

References

• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “culpa”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “culpa”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “culpa”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Santamarina, Ernesto X. González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “culpa”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “culpa”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

Etymology 2

Verb

culpa

1. inflection of culpar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Latin

Etymology 1

From Proto-Italic *kʷolpā (“wrong, mistake”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷolp-eh₂ (“bend, turn”), from *kʷelp- (“to bend, turn”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈkʊɫ.pa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkul.pa]

Noun

culpa f (genitive culpae); first declension

1. fault, defect, weakness, frailty, temptation
2. blame, guilt
   • Titivillus in culpa est.

     Titivillus is at fault [for introducing the errata in a copy of a manuscript].

3. crime, punishable act, mischief, sin

   Synonyms: dēlīctum, peccātum, scelus, vitium, noxa, crīmen, facinus, iniūria, malum, error, flāgitium, dēlinquentia, commissum, maleficium

   Antonyms: bonum, rēctum, virtūs

4. specifically, regarding sexual misconduct or unchastity
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 4.18-19:

     “[...] sī nōn pertaesum thalamī taedaeque fuisset,
     huic ūnī forsan potuī succumbere culpae.”

     “[...] if it had not been [for my] weariness of the marriage torch and bridal chamber, I would have been able to succumb to this one fault.”
     (Dido had pledged never to remarry; cf. Aeneid 4.172. Page, T.E. [1967], notes culpae as “a favorite euphemism in connection with love.”)

Declension

First-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	culpa	culpae
genitive	culpae	culpārum
dative	culpae	culpīs
accusative	culpam	culpās
ablative	culpā	culpīs
vocative	culpa	culpae

Derived terms

• culpābilis
• culpō
• meā culpā

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: colpa
  • Sicilian: curpa
• North Italian:
  • Emilian: cåulpa
  • Romansh: cuolpa
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Old Catalan: colpa
  • Old French: colpe, coupe, cope, corpe
    • Middle French: coupe, courpe, coulpe (Latinized)
      • French: coulpe
  • Occitan: colpa
• Borrowings:
  • → Aragonese: culpa
  • → Catalan: culpa
  • → Old Galician-Portuguese: culpa
    • Galician: culpa
    • Portuguese: culpa
  • → Romanian: culpă
  • → Old Spanish: culpa
    • Spanish: culpa
  • → English: culpa

Further reading

• “culpa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “culpa”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "culpa", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “culpa”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[2], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • a guilty conscience: conscientia mala or peccatorum, culpae, sceleris, delicti
    
  • to be conscious of no ill deed: nullius culpae sibi conscium esse
    
  • to be free from blame: extra culpam esse
    
  • to be almost culpable: affinem esse culpae
    
  • to put the blame on another: culpam in aliquem conferre, transferre, conicere
    
  • to attribute the fault to some one: culpam alicui attribuere, assignare
    
  • to commit some blameworthy action: culpam committere, contrahere
    
  • to commit some blameworthy action: facinus, culpam in se admittere
    
  • to bear the blame of a thing: culpam alicuius rei sustinere
    
  • to exonerate oneself from blame: culpam a se amovere
    
  • (ambiguous) to be at fault; to blame; culpable: in culpa esse
    
  • (ambiguous) some one is to blame in a matter; it is some one's fault: culpa alicuius rei est in aliquo
    
  • (ambiguous) it is my fault: mea culpa est
    
  • (ambiguous) to be free from blame: culpa carere, vacare
    
  • (ambiguous) to be free from blame: abesse a culpa
    
  • (ambiguous) to be almost culpable: prope abesse a culpa
    
• “culpa”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “culpa”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “cŭlpa”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 2: C Q K, page 1497

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

culpā

1. second-person singular present active imperative of culpō

Portuguese

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈkuw.pɐ/ [ˈkuʊ̯.pɐ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈkul.pɐ/ [ˈkuɫ.pɐ]

• Hyphenation: cul‧pa

Noun

culpa f (plural culpas)

1. fault
2. guilt

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:culpa.

Etymology 2

Verb

culpa

1. inflection of culpar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “culpa”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “culpa”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Romanian

Noun

culpa f

1. definite nominative/accusative singular of culpă

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkulpa/ [ˈkul.pa]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ulpa
• Syllabification: cul‧pa

Etymology 1

Learned borrowing from Latin culpa; cf. the inherited Old Spanish colpa.

Noun

culpa f (plural culpas)

1. fault
2. guilt
3. blame

Derived terms

• culposo, culposa
• echar la culpa
• libre de culpa (“off the hook, blameless”)
• mea culpa
• yo qué culpa tengo

Related terms

• culpabilidad
• culpable
• culpar

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

culpa

1. inflection of culpar:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “culpa”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025