criminate

English edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from Latin crimino, criminatus.

Verb edit

criminate (third-person singular simple present criminates, present participle criminating, simple past and past participle criminated)

(transitive) To accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate. [from 17th c.]
- 1791, Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, Penguin, published 1999, page 331:
  ‘I am now under confinement in this place for debt; but if you obtain […] a condition from the judge that what I reveal shall not criminate myself, I will make discoveries that shall confound that same Marquis […] .’
- 1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman:
  In Germany, I had heard little of this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed to the stories related once or twice about them in Carlsruhe than one does to tales about ogres. But here in their very haunts, I learnt the full amount of the terror they inspired. No one would be legally responsible for any evidence criminating the murderer.
(transitive, now rare) To rebuke or censure (someone). [from 17th c.]