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  • Chapter 26 - Lexicography and the Law

  • from Part IV - Dictionaries and Domains of Use
  • Edited by Edward Finegan, University of Southern California, Michael Adams, Indiana University, Bloomington
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of the Dictionary
    Published online:
    19 October 2024
    Print publication:
    31 October 2024, pp 512-532

  • Summary

    Law and lexicography intersect in various ways, involving intricacies in legal phraseology and semantics, the creation of dictionaries both legal and general, the evolving philosophies of what dictionaries should do, how lawyers and judges use dictionaries in their work, and even the settled doctrine that the drafters of legal instruments can be their own lexicographers. The two disciplines are perhaps as closely intertwined as any disparate disciplines can be – all the more so given the dramatic rise of textualism, especially in the United States, since the mid−1980s. Although Judge Learned Hand once cautioned that it is a mistake for advocates and judges to make a fortress out of the dictionary, that view has receded in recent years. If not a fortress, the dictionary is certainly a mainstay in modern judicial decision-making. The chapter treats the history of legal lexicography in Anglo-American law, the methods of modern legal lexicography, how courts use dictionaries, and how legal drafters engage in nonce-lexicography when preparing legal instruments.