Word.ws English Dictionary

judge

/d͡ʒʌd͡ʒ/

judge noun: a public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.

Noun (1)

judge (plural judges)

  1. A public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.
    • The parts of a judge in hearing are four: to direct the evidence; to moderate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said; and to give the rule or sentence.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Judicature”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    magistrate, justice, justiciar, justiciary, chief justice, Chief Justiciar, Capital Justiciary, Chief Justiciary, justicer, sheriff
  2. A person who decides the fate of someone or something that has been called into question.
  3. A person officiating at a sports event, a contest, or similar; referee.
    • At a boxing match, the decision of the judges is final.
  4. A person who evaluates something or forms an opinion.
    • She is a good judge of wine.
    • They say he is a poor judge of character considering all the unreliable friends he has made.
    Synonyms:
    deemer, deemster
  5. (historical) A shophet, a temporary leader appointed in times of crisis in ancient Israel.

Verb

judge (third-person singular simple present judges, present participle judging, simple past and past participle judged)

  1. (transitive) To sit in judgment on; to pass sentence on (a person or matter).
    • A higher power will judge you after you are dead.
  2. (intransitive) To sit in judgment, to act as judge.
    • Justices in this country judge without appeal.
  3. (transitive) To judicially rule or determine.
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To sentence to punishment, to judicially condemn.
    • He was judged to die for his crimes.
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To award judicially; to adjudge.
  6. (transitive) To form an opinion on; to appraise.
    • I judge a man’s character by the cut of his suit.
    • Let us be judged for what we attempted rather than what we achieved.c. 1921, Michael Collins, after the Anglo-Irish Treaty
  7. (obsolete, transitive) To constitute a fitting appraisal or criterion of; to provide a basis for forming an opinion on.
    • Noble and milde this Perſean ſeemes to be,
      If outward habit Iudge the inward man.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
  8. (intransitive) To arbitrate; to pass opinion on something, especially to settle a dispute etc.
    • We cannot both be right: you must judge between us.
  9. (transitive) To have as an opinion; to consider, suppose.
    • I judge it safe to leave the house once again.
    • I've been judged to have the best qualifications.
    Synonyms:
    hold, regard as, account, appraise, count, esteem, see, censure, consider, deem
  10. (ambitransitive) To form an opinion; to infer.
    • I judge from the sky that it might rain later.
    • However I have the mirror positioned, I can't judge where the back of the car is.
  11. (ambitransitive) To criticize or label another person or thing; to be judgmental toward.
    • There's something wrong with the world today; the light bulb's getting dim.
      There's meltdown in the sky.
      If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin,
      Mister, you're a better man than I1993, Aerosmith, Livin' on the Edge
  12. (ambitransitive) To govern as biblical judge or shophet (over some jurisdiction).
    • And after him aroſe Iair a Gileadite, and iudged Iſrael twentie and two yeeres.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 10:3
    • And after him, Elon, a Zebulonite iudged Israel, and he iudged Israel ten yeeres.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 12:11

Proper noun capitalized: Judge

Judge (countable and uncountable, plural Judges)

  1. A surname originating as an occupation.
  2. epithet of God or Jesus in his role as supreme arbiter
    • Wak’d by the trumpet’s sound,
      I from my grave must rise,
      And see the Judge with glory crown’d,
      And see the flaming skies.1763, Charles Wesley, “And am I Born to Die?” (Hymn 59) in Hymns for Children, and Others of Riper Years
  3. A male given name of rare usage
  4. An unincorporated community in Olmsted County, Minnesota, United States, named after Edward Judge.
  5. An unincorporated community in Osage County, Missouri, United States, named for a local judge who owned the town site.

Noun (2) capitalized: Judge

Judge (plural Judges)

  1. The title of a judge.
    • “I am saddened and disappointed in the way Judge Ehrlich behaved on the video. Her behavior cannot be condoned,” Tuter said.2018 April 23, Chuck Johnston, “Judge not allowed back to court after berating woman who died”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2025
    • Deobra Redden, 31, was caught on camera in January jumping over a desk and lunging at Judge Mary Kay Holthus, who was sentencing him in another case.2024 December 11, “The courtroom attack that led to 26 years in prison”, in BBC, archived from the original on 30 Jul 2025

judge meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

judge in Hindi

public judicial official
न्यायाधीश nyāyādhīś, न्यायमूर्ति nyāymūrti
someone deciding another's fate
विभेद करना vibhed karnā
to sit in judgment on, pass sentence on
बिचार bicār

judge in Tamil

public judicial official
நீதிபதி nītipati
sports official
நடுவர் naṭuvar

judge in Marathi

public judicial official
न्यायाधीश nyāyādhīś

judge in Urdu

public judicial official
قاضی qāzī, جَج jaj
More languagesFewer languages
judge in Bengali
বিচারক bicarok, জজ joj, কাজী kaji
judge in Telugu
న్యాయమూర్తి nyāyamūrti, న్యాయాధిపతి nyāyādhipati
judge in Malayalam
ജഡ്ജി jaḍji, ന്യായാധിപൻ nyāyādhipaṉ
judge in Kannada
ತೀರ್ಪುಗಾರ tīrpugāra
judge in Punjabi
ਜੱਜ, ਜੱਜ ਨੇ, ਜੱਜ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
judge in Gujarati
ન્યાયાધીશ, ન્યાયાધીશે, જજ
judge in Odia
ବିଚାରପତି bicārapati, ବୁଝିବା bujhibā
judge in Sanskrit
कुलिक kulika
judge in Assamese
হাকিম hakim, বিচাৰক bisarok, সোধাৰু xüdharu, মুঞ্চিফ muñsiph
judge in Nepali
न्यायाधीश, न्यायकर्ता, न्यायाधीस
judge in Pashto
قاضي qāzi, نياوی nyāway
judge in Tagalog
hukom, huwes
judge in Arabic
قَاضٍ qāḍin, قَاضِيَة qāḍiya, حَكَمَ ḥakama
judge in Malay
hakim
judge in Indonesian
hakim, juri
judge in Thai
ตุลาการ dtù-laa-gaan, ผู้พิพากษา pûu-pí-pâak-sǎa
judge in Vietnamese
thẩm phán, quan tòa, pháp quan, nhận định
judge in Myanmar
တရားသူကြီး ta.ra:su-kri:
Kashmiri
قٲضؠ qạ̄z'

Examples of judge in a sentence

  • We can't always judge people's ages just by their voices.
  • THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o'clock.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London...

All 40 example sentences with judge

Synonyms of judge

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of judge

Forms of judge

Noun
pluraljudges
pluralJudges
alternative form (obsolete)judg
alternative form (obsolete)iudge
Verb
third-person singular presentjudges
present participlejudging
past participlejudged
pastjudged
Proper noun
pluralJudges

Past tense of judge: judged

Plural of judge: judges

Origin of judge

From Middle English juge, jugge, from Old French juge, from Latin iūdex. Displaced native Middle English deme (from Old English dēma (“judge”)) and demere (from Old English dēmere (“judge”)), see also deemer, deemster.

From Middle English jugen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman juger, from Old French jugier, from Latin iūdicāre. Doublet of judicate. Partly displaced native deem.

From judge.

Words formed from judge

Phrases with judge

Words that rhyme with judge

8 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about judge

What does judge mean?
Judge means a public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.
What is judge in Hindi?
Judge in Hindi is न्यायाधीश (nyāyādhīś), न्यायमूर्ति (nyāymūrti), विभेद करना (vibhed karnā). See Judge meaning in Hindi.
How do you use judge in a sentence?
We can't always judge people's ages just by their voices.
What part of speech is judge?
Judge can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce judge?
Judge is pronounced /d͡ʒʌd͡ʒ/.
What is the plural of judge?
The plural of judge is judges.

Words near judge in the dictionary

  1. Judeth
  2. Judezmo
  3. judg
  4. Judg.
  5. judgable
  6. judge
  7. judge a book by its cover
  8. judge advocate
  9. judge advocates
  10. Judge Lynch
  11. judge not, lest ye be judged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: judge (page history and authors); Judge (page history and authors); judge (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); judge (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ବିଚାରପତି (Odia) (page history and authors); कुलिक (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); judge (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-judge.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-judge.wav.

Cite this entry: “judge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/judge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.