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prejudicial

UK/ˌprɛdʒʊˈdɪʃl/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,437 of 15,258neutral

Prejudicial means likely to damage somebody's case unfairly. Prejudicial evidence, prejudicial to a fair trial, unduly prejudicial.

It is a technical legal term and not the same word as prejudiced: evidence is prejudicial when its power to inflame outweighs what it proves, and a judge may exclude it for that reason even though it is true.

Definitions of prejudicial

  1. 1adjectiveprejudicialLikely to damage somebody's case unfairly.C1

    “The judge ruled that the newspaper article was prejudicial to a fair trial.”

prejudicial is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin praeiudicium means a preceding judgement — prae, before, plus iudicium, a judgement.

  1. Medieval Latin

    prēiūdiciālis

  2. Old French

    prejudicial

  3. Middle English

    prejudiceele

  4. English, today

    prejudicial

From Middle English prejudiceele, prejudicial, prejudiciall, prejudiciel, prejudiciell, prejudycyall, from Old French prejudicial, prejudiciel and Medieval Latin prēiūdiciālis.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

prejudicial in the wild

  • Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, prejudicial attack on a person, group, or subject.

    Bashing (pejorative)

  • In relation to non-physical bashing, the term is used to imply that a verbal or critical attack is similarly unacceptable and similarly prejudicial.

    Bashing (pejorative)

  • The National Bureau of Investigation was an organization in Ukraine dedicated to prejudicial investigation on especially dangerous crimes.

    National Bureau of Investigation (Ukraine)

  • The councillor has an interest in the plans being considered and is therefore considered to have a "prejudicial interest".

    Prejudicial interest

  • Sizeism, weightism/heightism or size discrimination is unjust or prejudicial treatment directed at people based on their size.

    Sizeism

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.