Meriam-Wobater's dictionary of law

The law touches the lives of all Americans. Even such common place activities as driving a car, depositing money in a bank, and entering a retail store have legal ramifications, although we are not ordinarily conscious of them. At other times-as when a relative dies or when we marry or divorce, file our income taxes, are injured in an accident, or sell or purchase a home - we may be actually aware of the law's presence. At such times we feel the need to know the law and to understand the often unfamiliar terms that make up its language. Meriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law is designed to meet these needs by offering convenient and comprehensive access to the language of law. It provides concise coverage of more than 10.000 legal words and phases, based on a thorough examination of the legally relevant citations drawn from the nearly 15,000,000 citations in the Meriam-Webster offices and supplemented by a review of material available through various on line legal databases. To make the dictionary easier to use, the information provided here is presented in a style that will be familiar to all users of standard desk dictionaries. Entries include definitions, pronunciations, variant spellings, grammatical information, etymologies for many words, and other conventional dictionary features. None of this information is intended to substitute for the expertise of a lawyer, but it will help to make encounters with law and lawyers less mysterious. Because the language of law can often seem to be a foreign tongue, the definitions in this dictionary are written in a style that as far as possible expresses unfamiliar legal concepts in ordinary English, without introducing inaccuracies caused by oversimplification. If an unfamiliar legal term occurs in a definition, the user can find it entered and defined at its own place in the dictionary. Further, any word that occurs in Meriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law is entered either in this book or, if it is not a legal term, in a current edition of any of Meriam-Webster's hardback or paperback adult dictionaries. As a further aid in clarifying obscure terminology, extensive use is made throughout the book of verbal illustrations - often direct quotations from legal sources-demonstrating how worlds are actually used. Many entries also include notes, sometimes quite extensive, providing supplementary information that is helpful in understanding a term or a point of law.