blood-guilty
Definition
- Adjective:
- Guilty of murder or bloodshed: "blood-guilty" describes a person who is responsible for the death of another, especially through violence or murder. The term emphasizes moral or legal culpability for causing a death.
Usage Examples
- (The king was guilty of murdering people.)
- (Someone responsible for a killing faced severe punishment.)
Advanced Usage
"to be blood-guilty": to bear the guilt of having killed someone.
- He was declared blood-guilty after the trial. (The court found him guilty of murder.)
"blood-guilty hands": a poetic or literary phrase meaning hands that have committed murder.
- The blood-guilty hands of the assassin could not be cleansed. (The murderer's hands were stained with blood from the crime.)
Variants and Related Words
Blood guilt (noun): the state or condition of being guilty of murder or bloodshed.
- The blood guilt weighed heavily on his conscience. (The feeling of being responsible for a death troubled him deeply.)
Bloodguiltless (adj): free from guilt of bloodshed; innocent of murder.
- The bloodguiltless soldier was cleared of all charges. (The soldier was found not responsible for any deaths.)
Synonyms
- Murderous: inclined or guilty of murder.
- Homicidal: responsible for killing another person.
- Culpable of bloodshed: legally or morally responsible for causing a death.
Related Idioms
To have blood on one's hands: to be responsible for someone's death.
- The dictator had blood on his hands after the massacre. (The dictator was blood-guilty for the deaths.)
To be stained with blood: to be guilty of murder.
- The blood-guilty general was stained with blood from the war. (The general was guilty of causing many deaths.)