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verdict

UK/ˈvɜː.dɪkt/US/ˈvɝ.dɪkt/
nounB2Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,341 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: verdicts

A verdict is the court's final answer — guilty or not guilty. Return a verdict, a unanimous verdict, the jury's verdict.

Not guilty is not the same as innocent: it means the case was not proved, which is a distinction juries are directed on and the public routinely misses. Scotland long had a third verdict, not proven. Note that the word means truly said, from the French for true plus saying.

Wmpearl · CC0

Definitions of verdict

  1. 1nounverdictThe court's final answer on guilt.B2

    “Everyone in the court was silent as the judge read out the verdict.”

verdict is a decision.

Where it comes from

Anglo-Norman verdit is veir, true, plus dit, saying. Verity and dictate come from the two halves.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *weh₁-

  2. Anglo-Norman

    verdit

  3. Middle English

    verdit

  4. English, today

    verdict

Built from

  • veir · Old French — true
  • dit · Old French — saying

From Middle English verdit, from Anglo-Norman verdit (> Medieval Latin veredictum), from veir (“true”) + dit (“saying”); possibly a calque of a gem - term such as Old English sōþword, sōþsprǣċ, sōþspell, sōþsagu, or sōþcwide, all meaning "true story, statement of truth, account, history". a doublet of veredictum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Crime & Law

Practise this word

verdict in the wild

  • A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes findings of fact and reaches a verdict.

    Jury trial

  • Such verdicts are possible because a jury has an absolute right to return any verdict it chooses.

    Jury nullification

  • In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge.

    Verdict

  • In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions).

    Verdict

  • Attainder by verdict resulted from conviction by jury.

    Attainder

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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.