From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishimplicateim‧pli‧cate /ˈɪmplɪkeɪt/ ●○○ AWL verb [transitive] 1 SHOW/BE A SIGN OFto show or suggest that someone is involved in a crime or dishonest act The allegations implicated Abe to such an extent he was forced to resign.implicate somebody in something Three police officers are implicated in the cover-up.2 SHOW/BE A SIGN OF formal if something is implicated in something bad or harmful, it is shown to be its causebe implicated in something Viruses are known to be implicated in the development of some cancers.Grammar Implicate is usually passive in this meaning.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
implicate• Science vainly struggles to keep up, offering hypotheses implicating all manner of causes and suggesting all manner of effects.• Seafood is increasingly implicated as the source of the hepatitis A virus.• Also, it was bound to implicate Government deeply.• According to the prosecution, DNA tests 'irrefutably' implicate Henson.• She is claiming that the police are deliberately trying to implicate her.• She had always been suspicious of Taczek, and here was yet more evidence implicating him with people she no longer trusted.• Certainly he refused to implicate himself in the development of a theory in which he had played so great a part.• Simon knew he couldn't possibly provide a blood sample without implicating himself.• The managing director of the bank was implicated in a fraud scandal.• Sexually transmitted diseases have long been implicated in infertility.• Five others who had been implicated, including the head of National Security, were not prosecuted, allegedly due to political considerations.• New evidence implicates Mr Stapleton and his wife in the blackmail attempt.implicate somebody in something• The suspect implicated two other men in the robbery.be implicated in something• It is not easy to find out which substrate molecule is implicated in a particular phenotypic or functional change, if any.• A third illustration is asbestos manufacture, which is implicated in fatal illness amongst employees and others.• The data presented here suggest that social network structure is implicated in processes of linguistic change in at least two ways.• If they were implicated in the cover-up it seemed inconceivable that the President had been unaware of what was going on.• And then I would be implicated in the evil, too.• Jim McDermott, D-Wash., after he was implicated in the leaking of a taped telephone conversation, Rep.• Other cultural risk factors, such as role conflicts experienced by women, may also be implicated in the pathogenesis of anorexia nervosa.• Otherwise the faithful were implicated in the suffering of the poor.Origin implicate (1400-1500) Latin past participle of implicare “to twist together, make complicated” 