Other forms: judges, judged, judging
A judge is the person in the robe who runs a trial and decides what happens at the end of it. They sit higher than everyone else in the room, tell the lawyers when to stop, and read out the sentence.
Judge is also the verb, and it means to weigh something up: you judge a competition, judge the distance before you jump, judge how much rice to cook. Point it at people and it turns cold — 'don't judge me' means stop deciding what I am worth. The result is a judgement, spelled judgment in law and across America. You judge someone BY their actions and ON their work, and 'judging by the queue, we are late' is how the word opens a sentence. The person handing out rosettes at a village show is a judge too.
1nounlawThe official who runs a court case and decides the punishment.~90%
“The judge gave him two years and a fine.”
2nounwinnerA person who decides the winner of a competition.~6%
“One judge gave the fruitcake full marks.”
3verbassessTo form an opinion about something after looking at it closely.~2%
“It is hard to judge the size of the room from a photo.”
4verbdecideTo decide, unkindly, that someone is bad or wrong.~2%
“She felt judged the moment she walked in.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: assess, evaluate
Judge came through Old French juge from Latin iūdex. It pushed out the native word: Old English had dēma for the same job, which survives only in the rare word deemster. English kept the courtroom and imported the name for the man in charge of it.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂yew-
Latin
iūdex
Old French
juge
Middle English
juge
English, today
judge
From Middle English juge, jugge, from Old French juge, from Latin iūdex. Displaced native deme (from Old English dēma (“judge”)) and demere (from dēmere), see also deemer, deemster.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA