Tribunal

How to spell tribunal

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tribunal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tribunal mean?

1. nounA court or official panel set up to hear evidence and settle a particular type of dispute or claim.

Tribunal in a sentence

• The employment tribunal ruled that her dismissal had been unfair.

• Both sides presented sworn statements to the tribunal before the hearing closed.

Where does tribunal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin tribunal, which originally named the raised platform or dais on which a magistrate sat to administer justice. That platform took its name from the tribunus, the tribune, a Roman official who represented the interests of the common people and dispensed rulings. The tribunus in turn derives from tribus, meaning 'tribe', since these officers were first associated with the three early divisions of the Roman population. English adopted tribunal in the late 1400s, carrying the sense from the literal judge's seat to the court or panel of officials seated there to decide a matter. The spelling stays close to the Latin, which is why it ends in the easily overlooked unstressed -nal rather than the -nel a writer might expect from the sound.

How the word is built

• tribun- (from Latin tribunus: tribune, a Roman official)
• -al (noun suffix denoting place or function)