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Meaning & use

guilty party

noun·Advanced

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UK/ˌɡɪlti ˈpɑːti/
US/ˌɡɪlti ˈpɑːrti/

Meanings

  1. nouncountable

    The person or group responsible for a wrong act, mistake or crime.

    Grammar: Plural is guilty parties: both guilty parties apologized.

    Patterns

    • the guilty party
    • find the guilty party

    The police are still trying to identify the guilty party.

    Whoever ate the last cake, will the guilty party please own up?

    The report named three guilty parties responsible for the spill.

  2. nouncountablelegal

    In law, the side in a case that a court finds to have done wrong or broken a contract.

    Grammar: Used in legal contexts about courts and contracts.

    Patterns

    • the guilty party in a case

    The court found the contractor to be the guilty party in the dispute.

    In a divorce case, the guilty party may owe additional costs.

    The insurer will pay only if the guilty party has been identified.

Word forms

pluralguilty parties

Common combinations

find the guilty party
The detective hoped to find the guilty party before dawn.
identify the guilty party
Nobody could identify the guilty party from the footage.
the guilty party confessed
The guilty party confessed to the headmaster.
punish the guilty party
The board promised to punish the guilty party.
guilty party owns up
The teacher waited for the guilty party to own up.

Synonyms and how they differ

culprit
Culprit is more informal and often used for minor offenses or mistakes.
offender
Offender usually refers to someone who has broken the law, so it sounds more official.
wrongdoer
Wrongdoer is general and moral, covering any bad behavior, not just legal offenses.
perpetrator
Perpetrator is formal and mostly used for serious crimes or harm.

Opposites

innocent party

Word family

guilt noun
the fact of having done wrong, or the feeling that follows
guilty adjective
responsible for wrongdoing, or feeling bad about it
guiltily adverb
in a way that shows guilt
guiltless adjective
free from guilt

Commonly confused: guilty party or guilty feeling?

guilty party vs guilty feeling

A guilty party is a person who did something wrong, while a guilty feeling is an emotion that a person may have.

Practice

The broken window was found, and the teacher asked the ____ to step forward.

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