blame

• IPA^(key): /bleɪm/

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• Rhymes: -eɪm

From Middle English blame, borrowed from Old French blame, blasme, produced from the verb blasmer, which in turn is derived from Vulgar Latin *blastēmāre, present active infinitive of *blastēmō, from Ecclesiastical Latin, Late Latin blasphēmō, ultimately from Ancient Greek βλασφημέω (blasphēméō). Replaced common use of native wite (“blame, guilt, wrongdoing, offense, fine, punishment”) (from Middle English wītan, from Middle English wīte). Doublet of blaspheme.

blame (uncountable)

1. Censure.

   Blame came from all directions.

2. Culpability for something negative or undesirable.

   The blame for starting the fire lies with the arsonist.

3. Responsibility for something meriting censure.

   They accepted the blame, but it was an accident.

4. (computing) A source control feature that can show which user was responsible for a particular portion of the source code.

• blame game
• put the blame on

• fault

From Middle English blamen, borrowed from Old French blasmer, from Ecclesiastical Latin blasphēmō (“to reproach, to revile”), from Ancient Greek βλασφημέω (blasphēméō). Compare blaspheme, a doublet. Overtook common use from the native wite (“to blame, accuse, reproach, suspect”) (from Middle English wīten, from Old English wītan).

blame (third-person singular simple present blames, present participle blaming, simple past and past participle blamed)

1. To censure (someone or something); to criticize.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.ii:

     though my loue be not so lewdly bent, / As those ye blame, yet may it nought appease / My raging smart [...].

   • 1871–72, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 1

     These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces.

   • 1919, Saki, ‘The Oversight’, The Toys of Peace:

     That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his volume on Domestic Life in Tartary. The critics all blamed it for a lack of concentration.

   • 2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho, Picador 2007, p. 106:

     I covered the serious programmes too, and indeed, right from the start, I spent more time praising than blaming.

2. (obsolete) To bring into disrepute.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:

     For knighthoods loue, do not so foule a deed, / Ne blame your honour with so shamefull vaunt / Of vile reuenge.

3. (transitive, usually followed by "for") To assert or consider that someone is the cause of something negative; to place blame, to attribute responsibility (for something negative or for doing something negative).

   The arsonist was blamed for the fire.

• (censure; criticize): reproach, take to task, upbraid
• (consider that someone is the cause of something negative): hold to account

• blamer

• Embla, Lambe, Mabel, Mable, Melba, amble, belam, bleam, melba