not guilty

plural not guilties

1. lawA formal plea by a defendant of not being culpable for the crime with which the defendant is charged.

   If you do not plead, a plea of not guilty will be entered for you.

   Synonyms: innocent · Antonyms: guilty

2. lawA verdict or formal finding by the legal system that a defendant is not culpable for the crime with which the defendant was charged.

   My heart beats through five not guilties. Six, seven, nine, eleven. Seventeen not guilties. The prosecutor's lips curl.

   2003, D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little, →ISBN, page 238

   Synonyms: acquittal, exoneration, quittance, absolution, acquittance, acquitment, acquittal, assoilment

3. A member of a jury or tribunal supporting acquittal, or a vote cast in support of acquittal.

   Two not guilties. Seven for conviction. "I'm a 'not guilty,'" she said.

   2006, John Lutz, Chill of Night, →ISBN, page 213

4. A person who has been acquitted of a crime.

   The not guilties walked out and went to work if they had jobs; the guilties were hauled away to spend maybe thirty days on the county farm growing cabbage.

   1997, David Brinkley, “June 5, 1983”, in Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion, →ISBN, page 32

1. lawOf a person, legally innocent of a crime which they have been accused of in a court of law.

   He was found not guilty because there was a reasonable doubt.

2. nonstandardInnocent.

   The jury said he was not guilty. I knew he wouldn't have done something like that.

   Synonyms: blameless, offenceless, blameless, clean, clean-handed, clean as a hound's tooth, clean as a whistle, clear