Court

How to spell court

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce court

What does court mean?

1. nounA body with authority to hear legal cases and make legal judgments, or the room where this happens.
2. nounA marked rectangular area for playing games such as tennis, basketball, or squash.
3. nounThe household, attendants, and ceremonial setting of a sovereign or ruler.
4. verbTo try to win the favour, affection, or support of someone or something.

Court in a sentence

• noun

  The case will go to court next month.

• noun

  They booked the tennis court for an hour on Saturday.

• noun

  The ambassador was presented at the royal court.

• verb

  The company will court new investors at the conference.

• noun

  The judge ordered everyone in the court to remain seated.

• noun

  The players warmed up at one end of the court.

Where does court come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the 1100s from Old French 'court' (also spelled 'cort'), which descended from the Latin 'cohortem', the accusative of 'cohors'. In Latin 'cohors' originally meant an enclosed yard or farmyard, and from there it came to describe a group of people gathered in such a space, including a division of Roman soldiers (the ancestor of the military 'cohort'). In medieval French the word shifted toward the enclosed space around a ruler's residence and then to the ruler's household and attendants, giving us the 'royal court'. From the idea of a sovereign dispensing justice came the sense of a court of law, while the original notion of an enclosed yard survives in tennis and basketball 'courts'. The verb meaning 'to woo' grew from the courtly behaviour expected at a royal court, and the silent-looking 'ou' spelling is a direct inheritance from its Old French form.

How the word is built

• court (from Latin cohors/cohortem: an enclosed yard, then a body of attendants)