Definitions

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

  • noun A digest of Roman civil law, compiled for the emperor Justinian in the sixth century AD and part of the Corpus Juris Civilis.
  • noun The definitive statement of a legal rule.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A digest or comprehensive treatise; a treatise containing the whole of any science.
  • noun Specifically plural [capitalized] A collection of Roman civil law made by the emperor Justinian in the sixth century, containing decisions or judgments of lawyers, to which the emperor gave the force and authority of law.

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

  • noun A treatise which comprehends the whole of any science.
  • noun The digest, or abridgment, in fifty books, of the decisions, writings, and opinions of the old Roman jurists, made in the sixth century by direction of the emperor Justinian, and forming the leading compilation of the Roman civil law.

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

  • noun A treatise or similar work that is comprehensive as to a particular topic.
  • noun A comprehensive collection of codes or laws.

Etymologies

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

[Latin pandectēs, encyclopedia, from Greek pandektēs, all-receiving : pan-, pan- + dektēs, receiver (from dekhesthai, to receive, accept; see dek- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin pandectēs ("book that contains everything"), from Ancient Greek πανδέκτης (pandektēs, "all-receiver, encyclopedia"), from πᾶν (pan, "all") (equivalent to English pan-) + δέκτης (dektēs, "receiver").

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Examples

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Comments

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  • (n): 1. a thorough classification and condensation of any subject;

    2. the abstracted summary of Roman court decisions compiled for the emperor Justinian: commonly known as "The Digest".

    January 11, 2009

  • He’ll hunt and he’ll peck to collect,

    To source, classify and connect,

    But Ernest’s best hope is

    An eccentric opus.

    He’ll never compose a pandect.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    December 6, 2018