ARRAIGN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does arraign mean? 

• ARRAIGN (verb)
  The verb ARRAIGN has 2 senses:

1. call before a court to answer an indictment

2. accuse of a wrong or an inadequacy

  Familiarity information: ARRAIGN used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ARRAIGN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they arraign    ... he / she / it arraigns   
Past simple: arraigned   
Past participle: arraigned   
-ing form: arraigning   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Call before a court to answer an indictment

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

"Arraign" entails doing...:

accuse; charge (blame for, make a claim of wrongdoing or misbehavior against)

indict (accuse formally of a crime)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to arraign the prisoners

Derivation:

arraignment (a legal document calling someone to court to answer an indictment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Accuse of a wrong or an inadequacy

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "arraign" is one way to...):

accuse; criminate; impeach; incriminate (bring an accusation against; level a charge against)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

 Context examples 

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:—That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Mr. Morse bitterly arraigned the English philosopher's agnosticism, but confessed that he had not read First Principles; while Mr. Butler stated that he had no patience with Spencer, had never read a line of him, and had managed to get along quite well without him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)