By Anatoly Liberman
As follows from the title, my first unpleasant character is CULPRIT; naturally, I am interested in the origin of the word rather than in the culprit’s behavior. What the OED says on the subject may be final, but the story will allow me to make a point not directly connected with guilt and crime. At first glance, culprit, with its root culpa (Latin for “fault”), is the most transparent word one can imagine. But what about -prit? English abounds in so-called disguised compounds. For example, marshal goes back to mara- (or some similar form) “mare” and skalk “slave.” The original marshal looked after horses. Then the word passed into Old French and returned to English with its lofty Romance meaning. Another horsy noun is henchman: hench- continues heng(e)st- “stallion.” Taking care of a lord’s horses gave status to medieval attendants. Marshal is disguised so well that we no longer recognize its old structure. In henchman, the presence of -man reminds us of the word’s initial composition, but hench- makes no sense to a modern speaker. In culprit, -prit baffles languages historians. However, no one ever doubted that we are dealing with a (thinly) disguised compound or word group.
In some early dictionaries, culprit was spelled culprit (1715), cul prit (1718), and cul-prit (1719). The word was relatively new at that time. It first occurred in a legal formula (see it below), but later acquired the sense “the accused” and still later “felon.” In texts, no occurrence of culprit “felon” predates 1700. I often refer to Nathaniel Bailey’s 1721 dictionary. Here is a passage from it: “Culprit, a formal word, used by the Clerk of the Arraignments, in Tryals [sic], to a Person indicted for a Criminal Matter, when he has register’d the Prisoner’s Plea, Not Guilty, and proceeds to demand of him, (Culprit) How wilt thou be Tried? Culprit seems to be compounded of two Words, i.e., Cul and Prit, viz., Cul of Culpabilis, and is a Reply of a proper Officer, on behalf of the King, affirming the Party to be Guilty after he hath pleaded Not Guilty; the other word Prit is derived of the French Word Prest, i.e., Ready, and is as much as to say, that he is ready to prove the Party Guilty. Others again derive it from Culpa, a fault, and Prehensus, taken, L. i.e., a Criminal or Malefactor.” (Note the prepositions: derived of, derive it from.) Bailey borrowed his etymology from Thomas Blount’s Law Dictionary and expanded it, but his dictionary had a much broader readership than Blount’s. Except that the OED found actual examples of cul. prit. in legal documents, Blount and Bailey’s explanation still stands.
Strangely, Samuel Johnson derived culprit from French qu’il paroit “let it appear” and took no notice of Blount’s or Bailey’s comments. In the early decades of the 19th century, correspondents to The Gentleman’s Magazine debated the origin of culprit anew, again without reference to Blount or Bailey, and vacillated between qu’il paroit, culp-prist “taken (supposed, suspected) to be guilty,” and Latin culpaereus (or culpae reus) “arraigned for a crime.” Some of them misunderstood the combination culpabilis prest as allegedly meaning “already guilty,” though it meant “guilty and (we are) ready to prove the defendant’s guilt” (“What! are our laws so severe and their procedure so preposterous as to declare a pers