For nearly 130 years, Black’s Law Dictionary has been the gold standard for the language of the law.
The greatly expanded 11th edition, with new material on every page, is at once the most practical, comprehensive, scholarly, and authoritative law dictionary ever published. With clarity and rigor, it defines more than 55,000 law-related words and phrases, recording their historical and present-day nuances. This edition introduces 3,500 new terms, including accountability, anticipatory self-defense, cyber force, Islamic law, Jewish law, legal moralism, legal reasoning, moral equality, peacekeeping, remotely piloted warfare, right to rebel, and umbrella clause.
More than 900 Latin maxims have been added, newly translated, and carefully indexed for this edition, making Black’s Law Dictionary the most thorough and reliable source for these essential and often elusive items.
Headwords are given their dates of earliest known use in English-language sources, giving dictionary users a greater sense of historical context. Black’s Law Dictionary is the only legal dictionary to provide such data.
The extensive bibliography lists the more than 1,000 classics of legal literature that are briefly quoted throughout the dictionary to amplify the user’s understanding of legal terminology. Each of the more than 6,000 quotations locates a critical and otherwise hard-to-find explanation of the terms under discussion.
Editor in Chief Bryan A. Garner, the world’s leading legal lexicographer, has assembled an unmatched roster of academic and practicing contributors who have vetted every term for accuracy. Never has such a distinguished lineup of legal talent been arrayed in support of a legal reference work.
If you’re using an edition that was current when you were in law school, you’re out of date. If you think a dictionary is useful mainly as a doorstop, you haven’t browsed the pages of this 11th edition. Once you do, you’ll find it hard to put down. Within moments, you’ll probably find something you want to cite.
