accuse

accuse, charge, incriminate, indict, impeach, arraign denote in common to declare a person guilty of a fault or offense.

Accuse is typically immediate and personal and often suggests directness or sharpness of imputation or censure; charge frequently connotes seriousness in the offense and formality in the declaration; one may accuse a bystander of trying to pick one’s pocket (an accusation which may become a formal charge before a magistrate); one accuses a man of cheating (an offense which one personally resents); one charges a man with cheating (an infraction of the rules of a game).

Incriminate may mean to charge with crime or serious offense

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your friend thinks he can clear Ken by incriminating poor Wayne—G. V. Williams

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careful study . . . has failed to show that any of the cultivable bacteria can be incriminated as the cause of colds— Andrewes

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but in current use it more often means to involve or inculpate in crime

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incriminating evidence

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the answer need not reveal a crime in order to be incriminating. It is enough if it . . . leads to proof of an illegal act— Gressman

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Indict adds to charge in legal context the implications of a formal consideration of the evidence by a grand jury or in general use by someone acting in the role of jury and of a decision that the accused person should be called to trial or to an accounting

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the jury refused to indict the men accused of arson

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I indict those citizens whose easy consciences condone such wrongdoings— Roosevelt

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Impeach implies legally a charge of malfeasance in office formally brought against a public officer by a branch of the government constitutionally authorized to bring such charges

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the House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson of high crimes and misdemeanors

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In nontechnical language impeach or its noun impeachment implies a direct charge which demands an answer

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any intelligent and noble-minded American can with reason take that side . . . without having either his reason or his integrity impeached— Kenneth Roberts

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“You buy your loves. ” . . . he did not plead verbally against the impeachment— Meredith

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To arraign is to call or bring a prisoner-before a court to answer to the charge of an indictment

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I was carried down to the Sessions house, where I was arraigned— Defoe

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Figuratively it means to call a person or thing to public account for something done or omitted

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arraigns the monks for teaching grammar rather than things spiritual— H. O. Taylor

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a despairing soliloquy . . . in which he arraigns the United States policy in relation to China— Times Lit. Sup.

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Analogous words: denounce, blame, reprobate, censure, *criticize

Antonyms: exculpate

Contrasted words: exonerate, vindicate, acquit, absolve (see EXCULPATE)