blame

1. uncountableCensure.

   Blame came from all directions.

   Synonyms: dispraise, disapprobation, disapproval, attainder, attainture, attaintment, censure, condemnation

2. uncountableCulpability for something negative or undesirable.

   The blame for starting the fire lies with the arsonist.

3. uncountableResponsibility for something meriting censure.

   They accepted the blame, but it was an accident.

4. uncountablecomputingA source control feature that can show which user was responsible for a particular portion of the source code.

present singular third person blames · participle present blaming · participle past blamed · past blamed · first person past singular blamed · archaic present second person singular blamest · past second person singular blamed · archaic past second person singular blamedst · present singular third person blames · archaic present singular third person blameth · past singular third person blamed · past plural blamed · past subjunctive blamed · participle present blaming · participle past blamed

1. transitiveusuallyTo 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 student driver was blamed for the accident.

   3 more examples

   After what happened at the wedding, I wouldn't blame you if you never spoke to them again.

   These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighbouring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.

   1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 8

   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.

   1919, Saki, ‘The Oversight’, The Toys of Peace

   Synonyms: hold to account, hold someone responsible, hold someone accountable

2. transitiveTo assert the cause of some bad event.

   We blamed the accident on the student driver.

   1 more example

   Have to catch an early train, got to be to work by nine And if I had an airplane, I still couldn't make it on time 'Cause it takes me so long just to figure out what I'm gonna wear Blame it on the train, but the boss is already there

   1985 December 23, Prince, “Manic Monday”, in Different Light, performed by The Bangles

3. To censure (someone or something); to criticize.

   though my loue be not so lewdly bent, / As those ye blame, yet may it nought appease / My raging smart [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   I covered the serious programmes too, and indeed, right from the start, I spent more time praising than blaming.

   2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador, published 2007, page 106

   Synonyms: reproach, shend, take to task, upbraid, fault, find fault, admonish, animadvert

4. obsoleteTo bring into disrepute.

   For knighthoods loue, do not so foule a deed, / Ne blame your honour with so shamefull vaunt / Of vile reuenge.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   Synonyms: besmirch, blacken, disgrace, assassinate, asperse, backbite, badmouth, befoul

1. not comparableeuphemism of damn (intensifier)

   “What do you want with one of those blame things?” / I asked him well beforehand. “Don’t you get one!”

   1923 October, Robert Frost, “[Notes.] The Star-splitter.”, in New Hampshire […], New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 27

   1 more example

   "He yarns good," said Tom Platt. "T'other night he told us abaout a kid of his own size steerin' a cunnin' little rig an' four ponies up an' down Toledo, Ohio, I think 'twas, an' givin' suppers to a crowd o' sim'lar kids. Cur'us kind o' fairy-tale, but blame interestin'. He knows scores of 'em."

   1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous