Synonym Chooser

How is the word blamable different from other adjectives like it?

Some common synonyms of blamable are blameworthy, culpable, and guilty. While all these words mean "deserving reproach or punishment," blameworthy and blamable apply to any degree of reprehensibility.

conduct adjudged blameworthy
an accident for which no one is blamable

When could culpable be used to replace blamable?

While the synonyms culpable and blamable are close in meaning, culpable is weaker than guilty and is likely to connote malfeasance or errors of ignorance, omission, or negligence.

culpable neglect

When would guilty be a good substitute for blamable?

The words guilty and blamable are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, guilty implies responsibility for or consciousness of crime, sin, or, at the least, grave error or misdoing.

guilty of a breach of etiquette

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for blamable
Adjective
  • The jury deliberated for two hours before finding McKnight guilty.
    Lesley Cosme Torres, People.com, 31 May 2025
  • Crawford plead guilty to three counts of vehicular assault and was sentenced to 2.5 years of probation.
    Kendall Capps, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 May 2025
Adjective
  • But Miss Manners acknowledges that there is also the less blameworthy impulse to offer comfort — not just sympathy — when there is no real comfort to be offered.
    Judith Martin, The Mercury News, 11 Feb. 2025
  • But Miss Manners acknowledges that there is also the less blameworthy impulse to offer comfort — not just sympathy — when there is no real comfort to be offered.
    Judith Martin, The Mercury News, 11 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • But in Friday’s season finale, Coop is able to not only acquit himself of murder and find the real culpable party, but is also given a chance to rejoin the professional ranks that had previously turned their backs on him.
    Max Gao, HollywoodReporter, 30 May 2025
  • The Framers understood the danger of a despotic regime and regarded the criminal jury trial as a key procedural safeguard to help ensure that only those acts and individuals society deemed truly culpable result in criminal punishment.
    Mike Fox, Chicago Tribune, 14 May 2025
Adjective
  • Today's extradition is a giant step forward in holding the defendant accountable for his unspeakably reprehensible and vile efforts to spread fear, chaos, and hate.
    Mandy Taheri, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 May 2025
  • Of the $15 million that the jury awarded Depp, $5 million was in punitive damages aimed to punish Heard for especially reprehensible conduct.
    Winston Cho, HollywoodReporter, 19 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Mark Dial, a former Philadelphia police officer who fatally shot a motorist during an August 2023 traffic stop, faces up to six years in prison as a jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and possessing an instrument of crime, but acquitted him of murder charges.
    Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 25 May 2025
  • The student was taken into custody and transported to the Meriden Police Department where they were charged with first-degree arson, reckless burning, first-degree criminal mischief and second-degree breach of peace.
    Staff report, Hartford Courant, 22 May 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Blamable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/blamable. Accessed 5 Jun. 2025.

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