Even if you did n’t analyse a lick of Latin in school , you might ’ve guessed the phrasemea culpacame from thelanguage . After all , English has borrowed quite a fewLatin phrasesover the years . This one is used as an apology . But whileI’m sorrydoesn’t needs convey that whatever pass off is your fault , mea culpadoes .
The term hails from an previous Romanic Catholic supplication of confession recognize as the Confiteor . ( The first word of honor of the prayer isConfiteor , which literallymeans“I squeal . ” ) Though there are a number ofversionsof the Confiteor across multiple Christian religion , you ’ll typically see this line in the more traditionaliterations : meā culpā , meā culpā , meā maximā culpā .
Without accent marks or context , this could simply be translated as “ my fault , my shift , my great fault . ” But with both those components , it ’s a more nuanced set phrase — oftentranslatedas “ Through my demerit , through my geological fault , through my most heavy fault . ” ( Sometranslationsdrive the distributor point home by using “ through myownfault . ” )
grant to theOxford English Dictionary , mass were exclaim “ Mea culpa ! ” alfresco of the prayer as far back as the early thirteenth century . Geoffrey Chaucerevenmentionedit in his epic poemTroilus & Criseyde , write sometime around 1385 : “ Now , mea culpa , lord ! I me repente . ” For the next several centuries , mea culpacontinued to be used as an interposition ; much like you ’d say “ My unsound ! ” or even just “ My fault ! ”
Then , in the twentieth 100 , English speakers began usingmea culpaas a noun that could describe any personal acknowledgement of guilt , defect , or wrongdoing . This signified often pops up in relatively formal scenarios — if , for exercise , a politico take on wrongdoing in a public affirmation , the culture medium might say they “ bring out a mea culpa . ” If your partner utters an offhand “ I ’m no-count ” after forget to purchase lemons , on the other helping hand , you may not feel like such a casualapologycounts as a mea culpa . Though maybe if they aver “ Now , mea culpa , lord ! I me repente ” instead , you ’d feel differently .
