common law
common law noun: law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations promulgated by the executive branch).
Noun
common law (uncountable)
- Law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations promulgated by the executive branch).
- Legal system mainly in England and its former colonies with a heavy emphasis on judge-made law, doctrines deduced by casuistry rather than from general principles, and law distributed among judicial decisions rather than codified statutes (as opposed to civil law).
- Body of law and procedure administered in certain courts (known as law courts) in England and its former colonies characterized by a rigid system of writs, with a limited set of remedies (as opposed to equity or admiralty).
- Law of general application throughout a country, province, or state as opposed to law having only a special or local application
common law meaning in Tamil, Kannada, Indonesian and Thai
common law in Tamil
- இயற்றாச் சட்டம், எழுதாச் சட்டம், மரபுச் சட்டம், மரபுச் சட்டம் எழுதாச் சட்டம், நடைமுறைச்சட்டம், பொதுச்சட்டம்
common law in Kannada
- ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಕಾನೂನು, ಏಕರೂಪದ ಕಾನೂನು
common law in Indonesian
- law of general application
- hukum umum
common law in Thai
- law of general application
- คอมมอนลอว์ kɔm-mɔ̂n-lɔɔ
More languagesFewer languages
- common law in Vietnamese
- thông luật
Synonyms of common law
Forms of common law
| alternative attributive | common-law |
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Origin of common law
Inherited from Middle English comun lawe, comune lawe (“general law, common law”), from comun (“shared, universal”) + lawe (“law”), referring to the law's uniform nature throughout a jurisdiction. Compare Medieval Latin lex commūne, iūs commūne and Anglo-Norman commune lei.
Words formed from common law
Questions about common law
- What does common law mean?
- Common law means law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations promulgated by the executive branch).
- What is common law in Tamil?
- Common law in Tamil is இயற்றாச் சட்டம், எழுதாச் சட்டம், மரபுச் சட்டம். See Common law meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is common law?
- Common law is a noun.
Words near common law in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: common law (page history and authors); common law (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); common law (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-common law.wav.
Cite this entry: “common law.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/common_law. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.