guilty

Responsible for a dishonest act.

Adjective

  1. Responsible for a dishonest act.
    • He was guilty of cheating at cards.
    • I still feel guilty about having forgotten his bday.

    Synonyms: culpable nocent

    Antonyms: innocent not guilty blameless clean clean-handed clean as a hound's tooth clean as a whistle clear dovelike guiltless innocent as the babe unborn innocent as the child unborn irreprehensible nonblameworthy offenseless pure righteous sackless sinless unblameable unblameworthy uncalculating unguilty

  2. Judged to have committed a crime.
    • The guilty man was led away.
  3. Having a sense of guilt.
    • Do you have a guilty conscience?
    • I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge...
    • The numbers thin out the further we get from London, so I don't feel guilty when I remove my mask momentarily to scoff some of the snacks I'd bought at Marylebone. - 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and...
  4. Blameworthy.
    • I have a guilty secret.
    • Don’t you see that we have been playing a guilty game, and have been overreached […] - 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 71, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify...
    • At twilight in the summerv[…] the mice come out. Theyv[…]veat the luncheon crumbs. Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner in a paper parcel in his coat-tail pocket, and ate it when so disposed, sprinkling...

    Synonyms: censurable culpable blameless praiseworthy

Origin

From Middle English gilty, gulty, from Old English gyltiġ (“offending, guilty”); equivalent to guilt + -y.

Forms

guiltier more guilty guiltiest most guilty

Synonyms

shildy at fault blameworthy censurable culpable guilty nocent reprehensible to blame

Antonyms

innocent praiseworthy

Hypernyms

accountable amenable responsible exceptionable illaudable uncommendable unpraiseworthy

Related

unguilty peccable weighed in the balance

Derived

beguilty bloodguilty guiltily guiltiness guilty as a cat in a goldfish bowl guilty as charged guilty as sin guilty conscience guiltylike guilty pleasure inguilty nonguilty unguilty

Noun

  1. A plea by a defendant who does not contest a charge.
  2. A verdict of a judge or jury on a defendant judged to have committed a crime.
  3. One who is declared guilty 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...

Forms

guilties