as in offender
a person who has committed a crime
the police caught the culprit a mere two blocks from the scene of the crime
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Examples of culprit in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The state’s utilities were a major culprit, possibly because of its rapid growth.
—
Scott Cohn, CNBC, 11 July 2024
Now, a paper out today in Nature fingers a surprising culprit: plague.
—Andrew Curry, science.org, 10 July 2024
The fans made the effort to clean the star themselves while the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce was called to clean it professionally and to find the culprits.
—Thania Garcia, Variety, 9 July 2024
Motherboards with improper overclocking settings were cited by Intel as an apparent culprit at one time, but as Level1Techs points out in the above video, that doesn’t account for crashes seen on server hardware, which should be set more conservatively.
—Wes Davis, The Verge, 14 July 2024
See all Example Sentences for culprit 
Scott Cohn, CNBC, 11 July 2024
Now, a paper out today in Nature fingers a surprising culprit: plague.
—Andrew Curry, science.org, 10 July 2024
The fans made the effort to clean the star themselves while the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce was called to clean it professionally and to find the culprits.
—Thania Garcia, Variety, 9 July 2024
Motherboards with improper overclocking settings were cited by Intel as an apparent culprit at one time, but as Level1Techs points out in the above video, that doesn’t account for crashes seen on server hardware, which should be set more conservatively.
—Wes Davis, The Verge, 14 July 2024
See all Example Sentences for culprit
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'culprit.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Thesaurus Entries Near culprit
Cite this Entry
“Culprit.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/culprit. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share