blamable
Americanadjective
Usage
What does blamable mean? Blamable is used to describe someone or something that deserves to be blamed for something negative that has happened. It can also be spelled blameable. The word blameworthy means the same thing and is more commonly used. Another synonym is blameful. To blame someone for something is to accuse them of having caused it or to hold them responsible for it. The word blame is always used in the context of something bad that happened—you don’t blame someone for something good. However, when someone is blamed for something, it doesn’t mean they are guilty of it—it simply means they are being accused of being guilty of it. The word blame can also be used as a noun referring to the responsibility for something negative that happened. This is how the word is used in the phrase assign blame. As a noun, blame can also mean the disapproval, condemnation, or criticism for something bad that happened, as in He deserves most of the blame for the loss. Calling a person blamable indicates the belief that they are responsible for what happened and that they should receive the criticism for having caused it. Example: Those who participated in the fraud should be held responsible, but those who knew about it and did nothing are also blamable.
Other Word Forms
- blamably adverb
- nonblamable adjective
- nonblamableness noun
- nonblamably adverb
- unblamable adjective
- unblamableness noun
- unblamably adverb
Etymology
Origin of blamable
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.
Perhaps the present legendry and technique of the moving picture is partly blamable.
From Time Magazine Archive
Miss Williams showed that she does not hold the Conservative general blamable, but rather looks to the Conservative Nationalist regime which he, Chiang Kaishek, has set up at Nanking, as the salvation of China.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last fortnight a jury again opined that the Curtiss pilot was not blamable for a fatal crash resulting from an air bump.
From Time Magazine Archive
Although the report postulates German innocence in employing poison gas, submarines, bombing planes, etc., only in "rightful reprisal," yet a minority of the Commission declared Germany blamable in one instance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Cora comes to me once in a while with her silky flatteries, and attempts to convince me that I have never been blamable as a wife.
From Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life by Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
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.
