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Impute vs Incriminate - What's the difference?

impute | incriminate |

As verbs the difference between impute and incriminate

is that impute is while incriminate is to accuse or bring criminal charges against.

impute

English

Verb

(imput)
  • To reckon as pertaining or attributable; to charge; to ascribe; to attribute; to set to the account of; to charge to one as the author, responsible originator, or possessor; -- generally in a bad sense.
  • * 1751 , (Thomas Gray), , lines 37–40:
    • Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, // If mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise, // Where thro’ the long-drawn isle and fretted vault, // The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
  • * 1856 February, , “(Oliver Goldsmith)” in the (eighth edition), volume and page numbers unknown:
    • He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy.
  • * 1956–1960 , (second edition, 1960), chapter ii: “Motives and Motivation”, page 29:
    • We ascribe or impute motives to others and avow them or confess to them in ourselves.
  • (theology) To ascribe (sin or righteousness) (to) someone by substitution.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin (2010), page 607:
    • To use the technical language of theologians, God through his grace ‘imputes ’ the merits of the crucified and risen Christ to a fallen human being who remains without inherent merit, and who without this ‘imputation’ would not be ‘made’ righteous at all.
  • To take account of; to consider; to regard.
  • * 1788 , (Edward Gibbon), (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) VI, chapter lxiv, “A.D. 1355–1391: The Emperor John Palæologus; Discord of the Greeks”, page 328:
    • They ?erved with honour in the wars of Bajazet; but a plan of fortifying Con?tantinople excited his jealou?y: he threatened their lives; the new works were in?tantly demoli?hed; and we ?hall be?tow a prai?e, perhaps above the merit of Palæologus, if we impute this la?t humiliation as the cau?e of his death.
  • To attribute or credit to.
    • We imputed this quotation to Shakespeare.
    People impute great cleverness to cats.
  • To attribute (responsibility or fault) to a cause or source.
    • The teacher imputed the student's failure to his nervousness.

    Synonyms

    * ascribe, assign, attribute, charge, reckon, consider, imply, insinuate

    Related terms

    * imputability * imputable * imputableness * imputably * imputation * imputed

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    incriminate

    English

    Verb

  • To accuse or bring criminal charges against.
    • The newpapers are all incriminating me unjustly in this fiasco!
  • To indicate the guilt of.
    • We have all sorts of evidence which incriminates you.

    See also

    * get the goods on ----