culpritn.

Etymology: 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-Norman culpable or Latin culpabilis ‘guilty’, abbreviated cul., and prit or prist = Old French 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.The legal tradition as to the origin of culprit is thus given:1717 Blount's Law-Dict. (ed. 3) (at cited word) 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 also 1729–72 G. Jacob New Law-dict. (at cited word) 1765–8 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. iv. xxvi, and note thereon by Christian (ed. 1795, p. 340). 1841–5 H. J. Stephen New Comm. Laws Eng. (1883) vi. xvii. 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 manuscript 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) f. 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.”.]