Culprit and Defendant

Culprit

Culprit noun - A person who has committed a crime.

Usage example: the police caught the culprit a mere two blocks from the scene of the crime

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Defendant and culprit are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Defendant" instead a noun "Culprit".

Defendant noun - A person or institution against whom an action is brought in a court of law; the person being sued or accused.

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Culprit and defendant are semantically related. You can use "Culprit" instead a noun "Defendant".

Nearby Words: defend, defender, defending

female	female culprit	female defendant
certain	certain culprit	certain defendant
single	single culprit	single defendant
actual	actual culprit	actual defendant
Other adjectives: potential, main, final, guilty.

Choosing not to accuse Pearl Fey initiates a chain of events where both the defendant and culprit die at the end of Turnabout into the Unknown and Obadiah Williamson uses a forged piece of evidence which gets him removed from the case.

Source: Video Game / Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Conflict Of Interest
In case 4 of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, getting the culprit and clearing the defendant's name are the defense's only goals after the defendant starts suffering from an apparently mortal poisoning.

Source: Clear Their Name
Played straight in of 99% of all Ace Attorney cases, where the culprit is never the defendant.

Source: Never The Obvious Suspect

Cite this Source

Defendant and Culprit. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 27, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/culprit/defendant

Culprit & Defendant. N.p., 2016. Web. 27 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/culprit/defendant>.

Defendant or Culprit. 2016. Accessed July 27, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/culprit/defendant.

Google Ngram Viewer shows how "culprit" and "defendant" have occurred on timeline