common law

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• common-law (attributive use)

Noun

common law (uncountable)

1. (law) Law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals (also called case law), as distinguished from legislative statutes or regulations promulgated by the executive branch.
2. (law) typically in the phrase "common law system" -- a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law (in sense 1), as opposed to a civil law, Islamic law, and Soviet law systems.
3. (law) typically in the phrase "common law jurisdiction" -- a jurisdiction that uses a common law system (in sense 2), United Kingdom and most of its former colonies and possessions, including the United States.
4. (law) (archaic) one of two legal systems in England and in the United States before 1938 (the other being "equity").

Coordinate terms

• statute
• civil law

Derived terms

• common-law marriage

Translations

law developed by judges

• Afrikaans: gemene reg (af)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 普通法 (cmn) (pǔtōngfǎ)

• Estonian: üldine õigus (et)
• Finnish: tapaoikeus (fi)
• German: Common Law (de) n
• Greek: νομολογία (el) (nomología) f

• Japanese: 慣習法 (ja) (かんしゅうほう, kanshūhō)
• Khmer: ច្បាប់សាមញ្ញ (km) (jbab sammanh)
• Macedonian: обичајно право (mk) (obíčajno právo) n
• Norwegian: common law (no)
• Portuguese: common law (pt) f, direito consuetudinário (pt) m
• Romanian: drept comun (ro) n
• Russian: общее право (ru) (óbščeje právo) n

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 判例法 (cmn) (pànlìfǎ)

• French: jurisprudence (fr) f
• Norwegian: rettspraksis m