Word.ws English Dictionary

Lemon test

Lemon test proper noun: the test for whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the United States' constitution: it does so if it lacks a secular purpose, has its primary effect as promoting or inhibiting religion, or fosters an excessive entanglement of government with religion.

Proper noun

Lemon test

  1. The test for whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the United States' constitution: it does so if it lacks a secular purpose, has its primary effect as promoting or inhibiting religion, or fosters an excessive entanglement of government with religion.

Origin of Lemon test

After Lemon v. Kurtzman, the United States Supreme Court case in which the test was first spelled out. Lemon is the surname of its lead plaintiff, Alton Lemon.

Questions about Lemon test

What does Lemon test mean?
Lemon test means the test for whether a government action violates the Establishment Clause of the United States' constitution: it does so if it lacks a secular purpose, has its primary effect as promoting or inhibiting religion, or fosters an excessive entanglement of government with religion.
What part of speech is Lemon test?
Lemon test is a proper noun.

Words near Lemon test in the dictionary

  1. lemon squares
  2. lemon squeezer
  3. lemon squeezers
  4. lemon tea
  5. lemon teas
  6. Lemon test
  7. lemon thyme
  8. lemon thymes
  9. Lemon Tree
  10. Lemon Tree Passage
  11. lemon verbena

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lemon test (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.

Last updated:

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