Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The philosophy or science of law.
  • noun A division, type, or particular body of law.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The science of law; the systematic knowledge of the laws, customs, and rights of men in a state or community necessary for the due administration of justice; the science which treats of compulsory laws, with special reference to their philosophy and history.
  • noun The body of laws existing in a given state or nation.
  • noun More specifically, the body of unwritten or judicial law considered in the light of its underlying principles and characteristic tendencies, and as distinguished from statute or legislative law.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The science of juridical law; the knowledge of the laws, customs, and rights of men in a state or community, necessary for the due administration of justice.
  • noun that branch of juridical law which concerns questions of medicine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun law The philosophy, science, and study of law and decisions based on the interpretation thereof

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the branch of philosophy concerned with the law and the principles that lead courts to make the decisions they do
  • noun the collection of rules imposed by authority

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin iūrisprūdentia : Latin iūris, genitive of iūs, law; see yewes- in Indo-European roots + Latin prūdentia, knowledge (from prūdēns, prūdent-, knowing; see prudent).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin iurisprudentia.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word jurisprudence.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.