Verdicts

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A formal decision made by a jury or judge that resolves legal disputes and reflects their conclusions about the facts of the case
2. An official conclusion reached by a jury or judge determining the outcome of a trial
3. The authoritative decision delivered at the end of a court case, indicating guilt, innocence, or liability

Etymology: "Verdicts" is the plural of "verdict", and the base word is a compound of two old French-derived parts: "veir", meaning "true", and "dit", meaning "saying". Put together in Medieval Latin as "veredictum", it literally meant a true saying, a statement of what really happened. The more striking possibility is that the Latin form may have been a copy of an older English idea. Anglo-Saxon speakers already had phrases such as "sōþword" and "sōþsprǣċ", built from words for "true" and "speech", and they meant something close to "true account" or "statement of truth". Scholars regard it as possible, not certain, that the Anglo-Norman and Latin forms were shaped on these native expressions, a calque in which the parts were translated rather than borrowed whole. The word reached English in Middle English as "verdit", arriving through Anglo-Norman French. Its original sense was the sworn finding of a jury, which is why the modern meaning still centres on the judgment at the end of a trial.

Synonyms: rulings, decisions

Antonyms: acquittals