blame

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noun

VERB + BLAME

▪ get

▪

My brother broke the window, but I got the blame.

▪ accept, bear, shoulder, take

▪

The company refused to accept any blame for the damage.

▪ apportion (esp. BrE), attach, attribute, lay, pin, place, put

▪

They placed the blame squarely on the doctor.

▪ share

▪

The government must share the blame for this confusion.

▪ escape, shift

▪

They tried to shift the blame onto someone else.

▪ absolve sb from, absolve sb of

▪

He was absolved of all blame.

BLAME + VERB

▪ fall on sb, lie with sb, rest with sb

▪

The blame lies with the police, who failed to act quickly enough.

PREPOSITION

▪ blame for

▪

He tried to escape blame for what he did.

PHRASES

▪ lay the blame at sb's door (BrE)

▪

The government tried to lay the blame at the door of the unions.

▪ part of the blame, a share of the blame

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verb

ADVERB

▪ unfairly, unjustly

▪ partly

▪ not really

▪

You can't really blame them for not telling you.

▪ widely

▪

He is widely blamed for masterminding the attacks.

VERB + BLAME

▪ can't, don't

▪

‘I just slammed the phone down when he said that.’ ‘I don't blame you!’

▪ can hardly

▪

You can hardly blame Peter for being angry with her.

PREPOSITION

▪ for

▪

I don't blame Jack for the mistake.

▪ on

▪

Whenever something goes wrong, everyone blames it on me.

PHRASES

▪ be to blame (for sth)

▪

A spokesman said that bad weather was partly to blame for the delay.

▪ be widely blamed for sth

▪

The government has been widely blamed for the crisis.

Blame is used with these nouns as the subject: ↑enquiry, ↑report

Blame is used with these nouns as the object: ↑failure, ↑media, ↑problem, ↑system, ↑victim