indictable

comparative more indictable · superlative most indictable

1. Subjecting one to an indictment. (of an act)

   Stoppage of streets, by coaches standing at places of entertainment, &c. &c. are public nusances, and indictable.

   1786, John Trusler, The London Adviser and Guide, London: for the author, page 132

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   Do not then charge men as too strict or precise, when they endeavour to abstain from idle thoughts and idle words, that they dare not give themselves that licence which others take, for these are indictable as well as great sins;

   1658, Anthony Burgess, “A Demonstration of the Day of Judgment”, in A Treatise of Self-Judging, London: T. Underhill, page 61

   In fact, ‘insult’ is hardly the word for what even I have heard you say; let me warn you, madam, that you have sailed pretty close to the wind already in the way of indictable slander.

   1902, E. W. Hornung, chapter 16, in The Shadow of the Rope, New York: Scribner, page 216

   The Sherlock Holmes stories […] are not all murders, and some of them do not even deal with an indictable crime.

   1944, George Orwell, “Raffles and Miss Blandish”, in Dickens, Dali & Others, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, published 1946, page 208

2. Able or deserving to be indicted. (of a person)

   1973, Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems, Harvard University Press, Appendix B, p. 307, In order to sustain his argument in the impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase, Luther Martin, his leading counsel, maintained that judges were indictable for violation of their official duties.

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   […] for Lords, Judges, and Justices of all sorts may, and too often do transgress the laws, as other men, and so of equals or Superiours, become subject to the justice of their associats in Commission […] being transfigured from Superiour Judges of the Law, to Inferiour Trespassers against it, Indictable by their Peers,

   1653, John Jones, Lawyers Unmask’d, London: Thomas Matthewes, pages 5–6

   Synonyms: chargeable