judgment
Pluraljudgments (some meanings)
UK spellingjudgement
- 1The mental faculty of deciding rightly or wisely; the power to form sound opinions and make sensible decisions.
Years of experience sharpened her judgment in difficult cases.
Trusting your own judgment matters most when no clear rules apply.
Similardiscernment, wisdom, sense, acumen, discretion
Note
Here the word names a capacity rather than an act. Used on its own, it carries a compliment: a man of judgment means a man of good judgment, and a politician without judgment lacks sound sense, not opinions. In the King James Bible of 1611 the poor are judged "with judgment", where wisdom and justice are hard to pull apart.
- 2A conclusion, opinion, or decision reached by judging someone or something.
The committee reached its judgment after weeks of heated debate.
In his judgment, the risk was simply too great to accept.
Similaropinion, decision, conclusion, verdict
Note
The opinion that judging leaves behind gives English a useful hedge: in my judgment. Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona has "She in my judgment was as fair as you." The phrase presents a view as personal while still claiming it was weighed. Unlike the faculty of judging, this sense counts freely: one judgment, rival judgments.
- 3A court's official decision or sentence determining what conforms to law and justice in a case.
The appeals court issued its judgment in favor of the defendant.
Both sides waited anxiously for the judgment to be read aloud.
Similarruling, verdict, decision, decree
Note
A court's judgment is not an opinion but an act with consequences: once entered, it settles the parties' claims and can be enforced or appealed. Courts give, deliver or enter one. The courtroom use is old; in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice the court is begged "To give the judgment", and Jeremy Taylor's The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living weighs judgments between the rich and the poor.
- 4The act of weighing evidence or facts in order to form an opinion or reach a decision.
The judgment of art is rarely free from personal taste.
Hasty judgment of strangers often leads to unfair conclusions.
Similarassessment, evaluation, appraisal
Note
The word that gives the whole family its shape: Middle English juggement, borrowed from Old French jugement and ultimately from Latin iūdicō, so in English terms it is simply judge plus -ment. It arrived beside an older native word, doom, and partly pushed it aside. As an act, judgment takes of before what is weighed: judgment of a role, of strangers, of art.
- 5The final decision or sentence delivered at the end of time, especially God's ultimate reckoning of humankind.
The sermon described the judgment that awaits every soul at the world's end.
Medieval cathedrals often depicted the final judgment above their main doors.
Similarreckoning
Note
Theology's ultimate use of the word, commonly called the Last Judgment, is central to Christian teaching on resurrection and salvation. It refers to the final sentence pronounced on every soul at the end of the world. Here judgment holds ground once held by doom, the older English word it partly displaced, whose story belongs to the act of judging.
Practice
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Origin
This word comes from Middle English 'juggement', borrowed from Old French 'jugement', which goes back through Late Latin 'iūdicāmentum' to Latin 'iūdicō'. It partly replaced the older word 'doom', and can be analyzed as 'judge' plus the suffix '-ment'.