criminate

present singular third person criminates · participle present criminating · participle past criminated · past criminated

1. transitiveTo accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.First known use 17th c.

   ‘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 […].’

   1791, Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, Penguin, published 1999, page 331

   1 more example

   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.

   1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman

   Synonyms: arraign, charge, incriminate, accriminate, accuse, appeach, arraign, becry

2. archaictransitiveTo rebuke or censure (someone).First known use 17th c.

comparative more criminate · superlative most criminate

1. obsoleteCriminated.

   If this bee a crime to call Vanitie, Vanitie: the wisest man that euer was before Christ was herein criminate, not when hee strayed, but when hee repented.

   (Can we date this quote?), H. Smith, Sermon