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GUILTY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: guiltier , guiltiest
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Showing a sense of guilt
Example:
the hangdog and shamefaced air of the retreating enemy
Synonyms:
guilty; hangdog; shamed; shamefaced
Classified under:
Similar:
ashamed (feeling shame or guilt or embarrassment or remorse)
Derivation:
guilt (remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense)
guiltiness (the state of having committed an offense)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Responsible for or chargeable with a reprehensible act
Example:
secret guilty deeds
Classified under:
Similar:
at fault (deserving blame)
blamable; blameable; blameful; blameworthy; censurable; culpable (deserving blame or censure as being wrong or evil or injurious)
bloodguilty (guilty of murder or bloodshed)
chargeable; indictable (liable to be accused, or cause for such liability)
conscience-smitten (affected by conscience)
criminal (guilty of crime or serious offense)
delinquent (guilty of a misdeed)
finable; fineable (liable to a fine)
guilt-ridden (feeling or revealing a sense of guilt)
punishable (liable to or deserving punishment)
red-handed (in the act of committing a crime or other reprehensible act)
Also:
inculpative; inculpatory (causing blame to be imputed to)
unrighteous (not righteous)
Antonym:
innocent (free from evil or guilt)
Derivation:
guilt; guiltiness (the state of having committed an offense)
Context examples:
She left to my care her only child, a little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then about three years old.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
I could not have believed that Sir John Lade would have been guilty of such a trick as pulling that leader across.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Frederick could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so agreeable.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Naturally he had no doubt that Cadogan West was guilty.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and hunted life.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Mind, I don't say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Meg stayed at home, lest she should infect the Kings, and kept house, feeling very anxious and a little guilty when she wrote letters in which no mention was made of Beth's illness.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
