Potter Stewart test
Potter Stewart test proper noun: the informal test of identifying something based on whether one intuitively feels it belongs to a certain category.
Proper noun
Potter Stewart test
- The informal test of identifying something based on whether one intuitively feels it belongs to a certain category.
- It may not be easy to give a precise, categorical, practical definition of "doing justice to the past," but the concept passes the Potter Stewart test on pornography — we recognize it when we see it or fail to see it, or at least are convinced that we do.2001 Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations
- While I continue to believe more in the Potter Stewart test, I thing Professor Feldman is to be commended for trying to impose some order on the chaos of religion and government, and I am grateful to him for discussing these issues with me2007 American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
- Synonyms:
- Potter Stewart standard
Synonyms of Potter Stewart test
Origin of Potter Stewart test
After Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who said "I know it when I see it" in regard to hardcore pornography.
Questions about Potter Stewart test
- What does Potter Stewart test mean?
- Potter Stewart test means the informal test of identifying something based on whether one intuitively feels it belongs to a certain category.
- What part of speech is Potter Stewart test?
- Potter Stewart test is a proper noun.
Words near Potter Stewart test in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Potter Stewart 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.
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Cite this entry: “Potter Stewart test.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/potter_stewart_test. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.