Judgement

How to spell judgement

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce judgement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does judgement mean?

1. nounThe ability to form sensible opinions and make good decisions, or an opinion so formed.
2. nounA formal decision or ruling given by a court of law.

Judgement in a sentence

• Years of running the business sharpened her judgement about which clients to trust.

• The court entered judgement in favour of the claimant and ordered costs to be paid.

• Against his better judgement, he signed the contract without reading the small print.

• The bank obtained a judgement against him for the unpaid debt.

Where does judgement come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the 1300s from the Old French jugement, meaning a decision or verdict, which was built on the verb juger, 'to judge'. That French verb traces back to the Latin judicare, 'to pronounce judgement', formed from judex, 'a judge', which itself joins jus, 'law or right', with dicere, 'to say', so a judge was literally the person who 'speaks the law'. The original sense in English was the legal one, a formal decision handed down by a court, and only later did it broaden to mean the everyday faculty of forming sensible opinions. The same Latin family gave us 'judicial', 'prejudice' (literally a judgement made beforehand), and 'justice'. The classic spelling trap is the soft g: because the g is followed by an e, English keeps that e in the British and Canadian form, giving the dge plus ment cluster that often gets dropped to the shorter American 'judgment'.

How the word is built

• judge (from judex: one who declares the law)
• -ment (noun suffix forming a result or act); note the e is kept between the dge and ment

British and American spelling

Judgement is the British spelling. American English spells it judgment.