accuse
part of speech
verb (accuse, accuses, accused, accusing); the accused — noun
meaning for a pupil
1) To accuse someone is to say that they did something wrong or bad. tree →
2) In a court, to accuse someone is to say officially that they broke the law; the accused is the person on trial. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life, stories and lessons about fairness it is used when someone blames another person: you should not accuse someone without proof. In law and history it is used for crimes and trials. The pattern is «accuse someone of something / of doing something».
examples
- She accused her brother of eating the last biscuit. tree →
- Don't accuse anyone until you know the facts. tree →
- The man was accused of stealing a bike. tree →
- He felt sad when his friend accused him of lying. tree →
- The accused stood up in court. tree →
- In the story, the wolf was wrongly accused. tree →
- Nobody likes to be accused of cheating. tree →
- He was accused of nothing less than murder. tree →
note
Regular verb: accused, accusing. Use «of»: «accuse him of lying» (not «for lying» — that is «blame him for»). Noun: accusation. Being accused does not mean being guilty; you need proof.
In the corpora
- A learner driver has L plates and a grown-up beside them; check before you accuse anyone of breaking the law.
- Never accuse someone because "everyone says"; accusations are for a teacher to look into.
- AI "detectors" exist, but they make mistakes and can wrongly accuse honest pupils.
- AI detector tools are not always right and can wrongly accuse honest pupils.
- It was reported that some students were wrongly accused of cheating by AI detectors; keeping drafts and notes helps show honest work.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «accuse» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.