Meaning & use
sole responsibility
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountable
A duty or burden that belongs to one person alone, with nobody else sharing it.
Grammar: Often without an article: take sole responsibility for it.
Patterns
- sole responsibility for something
- take sole responsibility
She took sole responsibility for the mistake.
After the divorce, he had sole responsibility for the children.
The contract gives the buyer sole responsibility for shipping costs.
Common combinations
- take sole responsibility
- The captain took sole responsibility for the decision.
- bear sole responsibility
- You do not bear sole responsibility for the failure.
- sole responsibility for
- The manager has sole responsibility for hiring.
- accept sole responsibility
- He accepted sole responsibility for the accident.
Synonyms and how they differ
- full responsibility
- Full responsibility stresses completeness, while sole responsibility stresses that no one else shares it.
- exclusive responsibility
- Exclusive responsibility is more formal and legal.
- complete charge
- Complete charge describes control over something, not who is blamed.
Opposites
Word family
- sole adjective
- only; belonging to one person
- solely adverb
- only, and nothing else
- responsible adjective
- having a duty or being to blame
- responsibility noun
- a duty or something you are accountable for
Commonly confused: sole responsibility or soul responsibility?
sole responsibility vs soul responsibility
Soul is a different word that sounds the same; only sole means only one.
Practice
The two partners share the work, so neither person has ___ responsibility for the company.
Choose one answer.
Sole responsibility means one person alone has it. Because the work is shared, neither has sole responsibility.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sole responsibility”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.