Not guilty; free from blame or wrongdoing, especially in older or dialectal English.
From Old English a- (without) + guilt, literally meaning without guilt. This prefix construction was common in Middle English but fell out of use as 'not guilty' became the standard phrasing.
English used to love the 'a-' prefix to negate words (like 'awry' or 'ashamed'), but we've largely abandoned this for straightforward 'not' or 'un-'. It's like watching how languages streamline their grammar over centuries.
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