culprit [L17th] Formerly in England, when a prisoner in court pleaded not guilty the Clerk of the Crown said: ‘Culprit, how will you be tried?’ This expression, first recorded in 1678, may have started out as a mistake in reading the written abbreviation cul. prist., which stood for Old French Culpable: prest d’averrer notre bille, ‘(You are) guilty: (We are) ready to prove our indictment.’ Cul prit (later culprit) came to mean ‘a guilty person’. Use may have been influenced by culpable [ME] which comes from Latin culpa ‘fault, blame’.