Culpable means deserving blame for doing something wrong. When someone is culpable, they're responsible for a mistake or wrongdoing and can fairly be held accountable for it.

The word appears most often in serious contexts. If a company is found culpable for polluting a river, it means they're genuinely at fault and should face consequences. If a driver is culpable in a car accident, it means the crash was their fault because of something they did or failed to do.

What makes someone culpable is that they played a real role in causing something bad through their choices or actions. If you accidentally knock over a glass of water, you might be responsible for the mess, but you're not really culpable because you didn't choose to do it. But if you're running in the house after being told not to and you crash into a table and break a lamp, you're culpable because you chose to ignore a rule and that choice led directly to the problem.

Courts and judges use this word when determining who should be punished or held responsible for something.