Other forms: prejudices, prejudiced, prejudicial
Prejudice is an opinion formed before you have the facts — literally a judgement made in advance, and usually against somebody.
In everyday use it almost always means unfair opinions about a group of people: racial prejudice, prejudice against older applicants. There is a second, legal sense that surprises learners: to somebody's prejudice means to their harm, and without prejudice on a letter means it cannot be used against you later. The adjective is prejudiced, and note the difference from prejudicial, which means damaging.
1nounprejudiceAn unfair opinion formed before you know anything.~85%
“The report found clear prejudice in who was called for interview.”
2verbadvanceTo make somebody form an unfair opinion in advance.~3%
“The article prejudiced the whole jury.”
3nounlogicHarm to somebody's rights or position.~12%
“The offer was made without prejudice.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 177 sentences found in the wild and placed 122 of them on a sense (55 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: bias
PRE-JUDice → you JUDGE before
The judge bangs his hammer and reads out the decision. Then the first witness is called in.
hooks ontojudge
Latin prae, before, and iudicium, a judgement — the judgement that comes first, before the evidence and before the trial.
Latin
praeiūdicium — previous judgment or damage
Old French
prejudice
Middle English
prejudice
English, today
prejudice
Built from
From Middle English prejudice, from Old French prejudice, derived from Latin praeiūdicium (“previous judgment or damage”), from prae- (“before”) + iūdicium (“judgment”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA