| 释义 |
culprit|ˈkʌlprɪt|
[Known (as a word) only from 1678. According to the legal tradition, found in print shortly after 1700, culprit was not originally a word, but a fortuitous or ignorant running together of two words (the fusion being made possible by the abbreviated writing of legal records), viz. Anglo-Fr. culpable or L. culpabilis ‘guilty’, abbreviated cul., and prit or prist = OF. prest ‘ready’. It is supposed that when the prisoner had pleaded ‘Not guilty’, the Clerk of the Crown replied with ‘Culpable: prest d'averrer nostre bille,’, i.e. ‘Guilty: [and I am] ready to aver our indictment’; that this reply was noted on the roll in the form cul. prist, etc.; and that, at a later time, after the disuse of law French, this formula was mistaken for an appellation addressed to the accused. (See note at end of this article.)]
1. Law. Used only in the formula ‘Culprit, How will you be tried?’ formerly said by the Clerk of the Crown to a prisoner indicted for high treason or felony, on his pleading ‘Not guilty’.
Its first recorded use is in the Trial of the Earl of Pembroke for murder in 1678: it does not occur in the Trial of the Regicides 1662, nor in the various State Trials of 1663, 1664, 1669. Its original force was formally to join issue with the defendant's plea of ‘Not guilty’, and to demand trial and judgement; but this was perhaps forgotten in 1678.
1678State Trials (1810) VI. 1320/2 (Earl of Pembroke) Clerk of Crown. Are you guilty, or not guilty? Earl. Not guilty. Cl. of Cr. Culprit, how will you be tryed? Earl. By my Peers. Cl. of Cr. God send you a good deliverance. 1683Tryal A. Sidney (1684) 6. 1752 J. Louthian Process Scotl. 197 If the Prisoner answer not guilty, the Clerk saith, Culprist*, [(i.e.) Culpabilis es, paratus sum verificare] How wilt thou be tried?—and the Prisoner must answer,—By God and the Country.—Clerk saith, God send thee a good Deliverance.
2. Hence assumed to mean, Prisoner at the bar; he who is arraigned for a crime or offence; the accused.
1700Dryden Wife of Bath's T. 273 Then first the culprit answered to his name. 1718Prior Solomon Pref., An author is in the condition of a culprit: the public are his judges. 1832W. Irving Alhambra II. 197 ‘Well, culprit’, said the governor..‘What have you to say for yourself?’ 1841Macaulay W. Hastings Ess. (1854) 649/2 But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the accusers.
3. An offender, one guilty of a fault or offence.[A change of sense, app. due to popular etymology, the word being referred directly to L. culpa fault, offence.] 1769Junius Lett. xxii. 100 He had not rendered himself a culprit, too ignominious to sit in parliament. 1822Byron Werner iii. iv, The fled Hungarian, Who seems the culprit. 1890M. Holroyd Mem. G.E. Corrie ii. 11 He..always took care..to send away the offender feeling himself to be a culprit not a martyr.
4. attrib.
1750Whitehead Roman Father Epil. (R.), Like other culprit youths, he wanted grace.
[Note. The legal tradition as to the origin of culprit is thus given:
1717Blount Law Dict. (ed. 3), Culprit is compounded of two words, i.e. Cul and Prit, viz. Cul, which is the Abbreviation of Culpabilis, and is a Reply of a proper Officer in the behalf of the King, affirming the Party to be guilty after he hath pleaded Not Guilty, without which the Issue is not joined: The other word Prit is derived from the French word Prest, i.e. ready; and 'tis as much as to say, That he is ready to prove the Party guilty. See also1729–72Jacob New Law Dict. s.v. 1765–8Blackstone Comm. iv. xxvi, and note thereon by Christian (ed. 1795, p. 340). Also 1841–5Stephens Comm. vi. xvii. (1883) 407.
This explanation is in accordance with the fact that the formula prest (prist) is of constant occurrence in mediæval procedure, to signify that the parties are ready to go to judgement on a point of law, or to trial on an issue of fact: see the old Year-books passim; e.g. Year-book 35 Edw. I (Rolls) 451 ‘Herle. La pasture de Strepham tut une e nent severe; prest. Passeley. Issi severe qe vous ne devez comuner outre les boundes, etc. prest. Bereford [Justice]. Vous estes a issue’, etc. The force of prest further appears in Year-bk. Michaelmas 12 Edw. III, Plea 15 ‘Le defendant dit..qe les blees furent sciez et emporte[z]; prest, etc.’, where another MS. for ‘prest, etc.’ reads ‘et demanda jugement’. Moreover non cul prist actually appears as an abbreviated form. In the Liber Assisarum, anno 22° Edw. I., placitum 41, we find in the report (Livre des Assises, 1679, p. 94) ‘Bank. Il semble que vous luy fistes tresp’..Pur que r[espo]nd[ez]. Richm. [for Defendant] De rien culpable, prest daverrer nostre bill’, etc. This, in Brooke's Abridgement (1568) fol. 7, Section Accion sur le case, Plea 78, is thus cited: ‘Banke Justic. Vous luy fist tort..p' q' rñd'. Richm. non cul prist, etc.’.] |