Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb Law To charge (a party) by indictment.
  • transitive verb To accuse of wrongdoing or criticize severely.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To compose; write: properly and still usually written indite (which see.)
  • To appoint publicly or by authority; proclaim.
  • To find chargeable with a criminal offense, and in due forms of law to accuse of the same, as a means of bringing to trial: specifically said of the action of a grand jury. See indictment.
  • Synonyms Charge, Indict, etc. See accuse.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To write; to compose; to dictate; to indite.
  • transitive verb obsolete To appoint publicly or by authority; to proclaim or announce.
  • transitive verb (Law) To charge with a crime, in due form of law, by the finding or presentment of a grand jury; to bring an indictment against. It is the peculiar province of a grand jury to indict, as it is of a house of representatives to impeach.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To accuse of wrongdoing; charge.
  • verb law To make a formal accusation or indictment against (a party) by the findings of a jury, especially a grand jury.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb accuse formally of a crime

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Middle English enditen, to accuse, write a document; see indite.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman enditer, from Old French enditer, from Medieval Latin indicto, from Latin in- + dictare.

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Examples

  • To be sure, waiting on a decision to indict is an exquisite form of torture.

    October 2005 2005

  • At least the word indict itself was not used by the panel which says it has no power to do so.

    WN.com - Articles related to Barclays Bank to support SMEs 2010

  • At least the word indict itself was not used by the panel which says it has no power to do so.

    WN.com - Articles related to Barclays Bank to support SMEs 2010

  • In a scenario where a consentual relationship is not implausible e.g. two people who frequent the same bar and knew each other in passing, or rape allegations based on "reconstructed memories" and there is no physical evidence or contemporaneous police report, the concern about a statute of limitation is very real, and I do not hold any comfort in the notion that a grand jury might fail to indict, which is more a theoretical than real possibility, if the prosecutor is at all persausive, and the evidence needed to defense oneself from otherwise unrebutted witness testimony might very well not be available.

    Should the Statute of Limitations for Rape be Abolished in NY? 2006

  • It seems he wants them to "indict," "expose" and "speak," all of which are presumably forms of non-literary public expression.

    Politics and Literature 2007

  • I suspect he may have decided to take a course of action that will wound this administration such as indict Karl Rove and Stephen Hadley.

    Firedoglake » Be Nice to the Man With the Double-Barrel Shotgun 2006

  • AIDS militants, meanwhile, maintained their propaganda barrage against Bush, issuing a declaration to "indict" the United States for "inhumanity."

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2002

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission to "indict" the previous apartheid government for crimes against ordinary men and women.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1996

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission to "indict" the previous apartheid government for crimes against ordinary men and women.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1996

  • The majesty of his indignation, fitly uttered in tones of superhuman power, made him able to "indict" a nation.

    Public Speaking Irvah Lester Winter

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