accuse
verb
- to appoint, invite, inform
- to charge someone with a transgression
- to assign blame
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /əˈkjuːz/ / /əˈkjuz/
noun
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-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.
- Accusation.
“And dogged York, that reaches at the moon, / Whose overweening arm I have plucked back, / By false accuse doth level at my life.”
verb
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-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.
- To find fault with, blame, censure.
“[…] 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.”
- To charge with having committed a crime or offence.
“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.”
- To make an accusation against someone.
“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.”