Blame

Pronunciation

• IPA: /bleɪm/
• Rhymes: -eɪm

Middle English, from Old French blasme

Full definition of blame

Noun

1. Censure.Blame came from all directions.
2. Culpability for something negative or undesirable.The blame for starting the fire lies with the arsonist.
3. Responsibility for something meriting censure.They accepted the blame, but it was an accident.

Derived terms

• put the blame on

Middle English, from Old French blasmer, from Late Latin blasphēmō ("to reproach, to revile"). Compare blaspheme

Verb

1. To censure (someone or something); to criticize.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.ii:though my loue be not so lewdly bent,
  As those ye blame, yet may it nought appease
  My raging smart ....
• Eliot Middlemarch|1These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.
• 1919, Saki, ‘The Oversight’, The Toys of Peace:That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his volume on Domestic Life in Tartary. The critics all blamed it for a lack of concentration.
• 2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador 2007, p. 106:I covered the serious programmes too, and indeed, right from the start, I spent more time praising than blaming.
2. (obsolete) To bring into disrepute.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:For knighthoods loue, do not so foule a deed,
  Ne blame your honour with so shamefull vaunt
  Of vile reuenge.
3. (transitive, usually followed by "for") To assert or consider that someone is the cause of something negative; to place blame, to attribute responsibility (for something negative or for doing something negative).The arsonist was blamed for the fire.

Synonyms

• (censure; criticize) reproach, take to task, upbraid
• (consider that someone is the cause of something negative) hold to account

Derived terms

• blamer

Anagrams

• amble, Mabel, Mable, melba