Other forms: settlements
A settlement is an agreement that ends a dispute without a full trial. Reach a settlement, an out-of-court settlement, a settlement was agreed.
Most civil cases settle, because trials are slow and expensive and the outcome is never certain. Settlements are often confidential, which is why so many disputes disappear without explanation. A settlement is also a place where people have settled — a Roman settlement, a new settlement — and, in finance, the completion of a transaction. Note settle, unsettled; and settlement agreement, which in employment usually includes a confidentiality clause.
1nounsettlementAn agreement that ends a dispute without a full trial.
“The two companies reached a settlement, so the case never went to court.”
2nounplaceA place where people have settled.
“There has been a settlement on that hill for roughly two thousand years.”
settlement is an agreement or a place.
From settle + -ment.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA