account to (third-person singular simple present accounts to, present participle accounting to, simple past and past participle accounted to)

1. (transitive) To answer to; to be responsible to.

   I don't have to account to you for my actions.

   • 2004, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Emerging adulthood: the winding road from the late teens through the twenties, page 217:

     Now it's only me that I account to. No one's checking up on me, and anything I do has got to be up to me.

   • 2000, Elizabeth Adler, All Or Nothing, page 56:

     You are the one paying me, and you are the one I account to.

   • 2009, Chris Fujiwara, The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger, page 65:

     Asked where she's been, June replies in an angry outburst, "Why must I account to you? I'm twenty-four. I'm tired of doing the same things every day!

• account for