criminate
"criminate" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“criminate” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | criminate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “criminate” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
criminate is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
criminate has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested circa 1591; borrowed from Latin crīminātus, perfect passive participle of crīminō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix). The correct English form is criminate, spelled C-R-I-M-I-N-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To accuse (someone) of a crime; to incriminate.
- 2To rebuke or censure (someone).
Etymology
First attested circa 1591; borrowed from Latin crīminātus, perfect passive participle of crīminō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “criminate”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-I-M-I-N-A-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.