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unconstitutional

adjectiveB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,922 of 15,258mostly written

Unconstitutional means against the basic law of a country. Ruled unconstitutional, an unconstitutional act, plainly unconstitutional.

In countries with a written constitution a court can strike a law down as unconstitutional, which is real power. Britain has no single document, so the word is used politically rather than legally there.

Definitions of unconstitutional

  1. 1adjectiveunconstitutionalAgainst the basic law of a country.B2+

    “Critics argued that closing parliament for months would be unconstitutional.”

unconstitutional is a quality.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *steh₂- — to stand (up)

  2. Latin

    cōnstitūtiō

  3. Old French

    constitucion

  4. Middle English

    constitucioun

  5. English

    constitutional

  6. English, today

    unconstitutional

Built from

  • constitucion · Middle English — edict, law, ordinance, regulation, rule, statute; body of laws or rules, or customs; body of fundamental principles; principle or rule (of science); creation
  • cōnstitūtiōnem · Latin — character, constitution, disposition, nature; definition; point in dispute; order, regulation; arrangement, system
  • cōnstituō · Latin — to establish, set up; to confirm; to decide, resolve
  • statuō · Latin — to set up, station; to establish; to determine, fix

From un- + constitutional. constitutional comes from constitution + -al. Constitution is derived from Middle English constitucioun, constitucion (“edict, law, ordinance, regulation, rule, statute; body of laws or rules, or customs; body of fundamental principles; principle or rule (of science); creation”) from Old French constitucion (modern French constitution), a learned borrowing from Latin cōnstitūtiō, cōnstitūtiōnem (“character, constitution, disposition, nature; definition; point in dispute; order, regulation; arrangement, system”), from cōnstituō (“to establish, set up; to confirm; to decide, resolve”) (from con- + statuō (“to set up, station; to establish; to determine, fix”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European steh₂- (“to stand (up)”))) + -tiō, -tiōnem.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

unconstitutional in the wild

  • The resolutions argued that the states had the right and the duty to declare unconstitutional those acts of Congress that the Constitution did not authorize.

    Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

  • The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 argued that each individual state has the power to declare that federal laws are unconstitutional and void.

    Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

  • The Court also ruled these laws were unconstitutional in the 1987 case, Edwards v.

    Epperson v. Arkansas

  • Federal Election Commission held that aggregate limits on political giving by an individual are unconstitutional.

    Buckley v. Valeo

  • On appeal from the Superior Court of Yuba County, the Supreme Court unanimously vacated the verdict and declared the law unconstitutional, as violating the Constitution's Commerce Clause.

    Edwards v. California

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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.

Related words

the statuō family

statueinstitutionsubstitute

unconstitutional — used about once every 10,786 pages · #11,922 · point at the bar for the others