guilty
Americanadjective
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having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law; justly subject to a certain accusation or penalty; culpable.
The jury found her guilty of murder.
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characterized by, connected with, or involving guilt.
guilty intent.
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having or showing a sense of guilt, whether real or imagined.
a guilty conscience.
adjective
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responsible for an offence or misdeed
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law having committed an offence or adjudged to have done so
the accused was found guilty
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law (of a person charged with an offence) to admit responsibility; confess
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of, showing, or characterized by guilt
a guilty smile
guilty pleasures
Usage
What does guilty mean? If you’re guilty, it means you were responsible for doing something wrong, especially a crime. If you’re found guilty, it means a jury has officially decided that you committed a crime. If you feel guilty, it means you feel bad about something you shouldn’t have done or should have done but didn’t.In a legal context, guilty is the opposite of innocent (not guilty). It is often used in an official sense, but not always.Example: Once when I was a kid I shoplifted a stick of gum from the store and felt so guilty about it that I was crying by the time I got home.
Other Word Forms
- guiltily adverb
- guiltiness noun
- overguilty adjective
- quasi-guiltily adverb
- quasi-guilty adjective
Etymology
Origin of guilty
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English gyltig; equivalent to guilt + -y 1
Compare meaning
How does guilty compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A man who left a fake stick of dynamite outside the headquarters of MI5 has been found guilty of carrying out a bomb hoax.
From BBC
While they’ve secured guilty pleas in 23 of those cases, they had lost every case they took to trial until Friday.
From Los Angeles Times
Lemon and the others initially arrested have pleaded not guilty to civil rights violations.
From BBC
Tucker and Luckey have also pleaded guilty to felony charges and remain in federal custody awaiting their own sentencing hearings, according to the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times
He said people should not jump to conclusions about who may be guilty of wrongdoing.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
