Black's Law Dictionary

📘 BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY has proven its value through the years to the busy practitioner, judge and law student who requires quick and convenient access to the meanings of legal terms and phrases found in statutes or judicial opinions, as well as to the special legal meanings of standard English words—meanings which frequently cannot be found in the ordinary English language dictionaries. In the period of more than thirty five years since the publication of the Third Edition, the law has undergone substantial changes and developments. The vocabulary of the law has shown corresponding change and growth. A word, in the often quoted dictum of Mr. Justice Holmes, is "the skin of a living thought," and the words of statutes and judicial opinions reflect the contemporary thinking of legislators and jurists. In order adequately to represent this thinking in the fourth edition, a patient examination was made of the thousands of opinions handed down by the appellate courts each year. Some revisions and additions have been included in this Revised Fourth Edition. Abbreviations of common words and phrases likely to be encountered by the user are explained in appropriate places throughout the main body of the work. A Table of Abbreviations of the titles of law reports, textbooks, and other legal literature is contained in the back of the volume and a Guide to Pronunciation is included in the front of the volume. New features in this Revised Fourth Edition include the following: Code of P...