What does criminate mean?
Criminate is a formal English verb meaning to accuse someone of a crime or to charge them with wrongdoing — essentially the act captured more familiarly by 'incriminate'. A secondary, older sense extends the word to general condemnation: to censure or speak reproachfully of a person's conduct. The word derives from the Latin crimen, meaning judgment, charge, or accusation, which also gives us crime, criminal, and discriminate. Though it has been part of English since at least the early seventeenth century, criminate never achieved wide currency, and today it survives mainly in legal history and older texts, where its derivatives crimination and criminative occasionally appear. For modern readers it functions as a literary or deliberately archaic alternative: where 'incriminate' implies evidence that makes guilt plausible, 'criminate' can denote the bare act of accusation itself. Writers reaching for it should expect most audiences to find it unfamiliar, but its precision and lineage reward the effort.
verbTo accuse of a crime or charge with wrongdoing; to incriminate. It can also mean to censure or speak reproachfully of someone.
- To accuse of a crime or charge with an offence; to incriminate.
- To censure, condemn, or speak reproachfully of someone.
"The leaked memos threatened to criminate several senior officials in the scandal."
"The testimony seemed calculated to criminate the treasurer rather than clear him."
"Victorian moralists were quick to criminate anyone whose conduct departed from convention."
Criminate is the older sibling of 'incriminate' — the prefix in- was bolted on later, so for centuries accusing someone of a crime needed no prefix at all.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of criminate
Criminate entered English in the early seventeenth century, borrowed from the Latin verb criminare (or its past participle criminatus), formed from crimen, meaning judgment, charge, or accusation. The same root produced incriminate, which added the intensifying prefix in- and eventually eclipsed its plainer relative in everyday use. Cognates from crimen include crime, criminal, discriminate, recrimination, and the academic field of criminology, all preserving the Latin notion of a formal charge or judgment against a person.
Related word forms
How criminate is actually used
Criminate is rare and formal, now largely displaced by 'incriminate' in legal contexts and by ordinary words like 'accuse' or 'condemn' elsewhere. Its derivative forms are even rarer and are chiefly encountered in older legal and theological writing.
Easily confused with criminate
Incriminate means specifically to make someone appear guilty of a crime, while criminate is a rarer, more general term that can also mean merely to accuse or censure without implying proof.
Discriminate means to distinguish between things or treat people unfairly based on categories, whereas criminate means to accuse of crime or wrongdoing; they share only their Latin root crimen (judgment, accusation).