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JUDGEMENT

Alternative forms

Noun

judgment (countable and uncountable, plural judgments)

  1. The act of judging. quotations ▲
    • 1962 December, “Dr. Beeching previews the plan for British Railways”, in Modern Railways, page 376:

The key to the situation was judgment of the role the railways could play in modern times.

  1. The power or faculty of performing such operations; especially, when unqualified, the faculty of judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely quotations ▲

a man of judgment / a man of good judgment

a politician without judgment

Hermia. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. Theseus. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment.

[T]he person presented shall be tried and examined by the judgment of learned men of the church; […]

  1. The conclusion or result of judging; an opinion; a decision. quotations ▲

She in my judgment was as fair as you.

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy […]

  1. (law) The act of determining, as in courts of law, what is conformable to law and justice; also, the determination, decision, or sentence of a court, or of a judge. quotations ▲
    • 1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC:

In judgments between the Rich and the Poor: it is not to be considered what the poor man needs, but what is his own

Most heartily I do beseech the court To give the judgment.

  1. (theology) The final award; the last sentence.
Usage notes

See Judgment: Spelling for discussion of spelling usage of judgment versus judgement. Briefly, the form without the -e is preferred in American English, and in law globally, while the form with the -e is preferred in non-legal use in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South African English. Google Ngram search for the judgment in the British corpus suggests judgment is at least as common in British English as judgement.

Like abridgment, acknowledgment, and lodgment, judgment is sometimes written with ‘British’ spellings in American English, as judgement (respectively, abridgement, acknowledgement, and lodgement).

The British spelling preserves the rule that G can only be soft while preceding an E, I, or Y.

Common collocations include pass judgment, make a judgment and "in one's judgment".

Derived terms