These two volumes contain absorbing and interesting concise definitions of ancient and modern words and terms that a student or lawyer might come across in legal readings. Purely statutory and judicial definitions, since they are constantly changing, are excluded. This is a wonderful reference source for all who are serious about legal history or merely curious as to the meaning of thousands of words often or rarely encountered.

This is a dictionary of the language of the law as used in America today. Most of this dictionary is written in ordinary English. Most of the words that lawyers use in writing and talking about the law are the ordinary words that fill the dictionaries of the English language. They have a place in this dictionary when the law gives them a specialized sense; or to emphasize that there is none. Too often an apparent change in sense results not from the law but from bad grammar or redundancy; or from an unsorted host of possible meanings jumbled together and left to the vagaries of interpretation. At the other extreme, individual cases, each walled in by its own distinctive facts and law, may give an immaculately narrowed sense, but neither generalized definition nor standards for the gradation of sense that is the essence of clear usage. A small number of citations to cases of special relevance to word usage are included in this dictionary. The citation count does not measure the indebtedness of this dictionary to old and current sources of American legal usage. The definitions and examples of usage in this dictionary have roots in the law reports of thousands of litigated cases; in law writings formal and informal, profound and trivial; in the talk of lawyers and judges in court and out--the formal and the informal--colloquial and slangy, talk that is precise and talk that is mush; in a long line of dictionaries past and present--law dictionaries, and dictionaries of English and its usage. Drawing from all those sources, the definitions and examples are shaped by more than a half-century of personal immersion in the oral and written language of the law, as law student, practicing lawyer, professor, and writer. And something has been added. This dictionary is designed to sort out the words used in the law, and to identify the different senses in which each is used, and can be used. With cross-reference, it tells how words are related to each other and separated for each other, so that discrimination and choice of usage are possible. Words are grouped together as identical, similar, disparate, departing from or paralleling the usages of ordinary English. Where usage is not uniform, the dictionary comments on what is better, best, and worst. The dictionary concentrates on general legal usage for a profession practicing in the American common law tradition . . . The dictionary does not detail the multitude of other jurisdictional variations, but calls attention to the fact of variation. Although the distinction is often difficult to make, this is a word dictionary, not a short legal encyclopedia. Technicalities in general legal usage are included, but not the intricacies of learning in specialized fields of the law. There is no standard legal pronunciation. Pronunciation is included here when it is unusual, exotic, controversial, or needed to prevent confusion. Pronunciation is rendered in simplified phonetics. American law dictionaries go back to 1839. This one is new and different. --David Mellinkoff, from the Preface

Blount, Thomas [1618-1679]. Nomo Lexikon: A Law-Dictionary. Interpreting Such Difficult and Obscure Words and Terms, as are Found Either in Our Common or Statute, Ancient or Modern, Laws. With References to the Several Statutes, Records, Registers, Law-Books, Charters, Ancient Deeds, and Manuscripts, Wherein the Words are Used: And Etymologies, Where They Properly Occur. London: Printed by Tho. Newcomb for John Martin and Henry Herringman, 1670. Unpaginated. Text printed in double columns. Folio (8" x 12"). Reprinted 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-415-0. Cloth. $140. * Reprint of first edition. Blount was a member of the Inner Temple. Prohibited to practice at the Bar because he was a Catholic, Blount turned to legal scholarship and lexicography. Blount aimed to correct the defects he found in Cowell's Interpreter (1607) and Rastell's Termes de la Ley (1523). In his preface, he observed that Cowell "is sometimes too prolix in the derivation of a Word, setting down several Authors Opinions, without categorically determining which is the true"; Rastell "wrote so long hence, that his very Language and manner of expression was almost antiquated." He hoped that by correcting these flaws he would create a dictionary useful to everyone in the profession from "the Coif to the puny-Clerk." The Nomo-Lexikon is clearer and more detailed than its predecessors. It is also the first English-language dictionary with entries that include word etymologies and citations. An immediate success that quickly supplanted its predecessors, it was reissued in larger and revised editions throughout the eighteenth century.

Collects more than 1,400 English-language proverbs that arose in the 20th and 21st centuries, organized alphabetically by key words and including information on date of origin, history and meaning.

Considered the most valuable reference tool available to the legal community, Black's Pocket Dictionary provides more than 13,000 clear, concise, and precise definitions. The essential companion dictionary to the Standard edition and as a stand-alone tool, Black's Pocket Dictionary also includes a dictionary guide and the complete U.S. Constitution. Black's is cited by judges and lawyers more than any other legal dictionary, comes recommended by law faculty, and is available in the pocket format and a variety of other useful editions.