Blame

How to spell blame

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce blame

What does blame mean?

1. verbTo hold someone or something responsible for a fault or wrong.
2. nounResponsibility for a fault or wrong.

Blame in a sentence

• verb

  Managers should not blame the whole team for one mistake.

• noun

  The director accepted full blame for the budget overrun.

• verb

  Investigators were quick to blame faulty wiring for the fire.

• noun

  Shifting the blame onto a junior employee was a cowardly move.

Where does blame come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Blame travelled into English through Old French blasmer, which meant 'to reproach' or 'to find fault with'. That French verb came from the Late Latin blasphemare, meaning 'to speak evil of' or 'to revile', which Latin itself had taken from the Greek blasphemein, built from blaptein 'to harm' and pheme 'speech'. So at its root the word literally meant doing harm with words. English adopted it in the 1200s, by which time the heavier religious sense had softened into the everyday idea of holding someone responsible for a fault. The surprising twist is that 'blame' and 'blaspheme' are doublets, two words grown from the very same Greek source, one worn down through French and one kept closer to its classical shape. Knowing the Greek pheme 'speech' helps explain why the modern word is about assigning fault in words rather than the silent -ph- spelling its cousin retains.

How the word is built

• blam- (from Late Latin blasphemare, to speak evil of)
• -e