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legalese.

Technical jargon common in the legal profession; the argot of lawyers.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˌliː.ɡəˈliːz/UK/ˌli.ɡəˈliz/Canada, US/ˌliː.ɡəˈliːz/Australia[ˌlɪi.ɡəˈlɪiz]Australia
  1. Technical jargon common in the legal profession; the argot of lawyers.

    derogatory · informal · uncountable
  2. Wordy, ostentatious talk or writing that resembles legal writing, especially when confusing to laypeople; bureaucratese; officialese.

    derogatory · informal · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *lḗǵs? Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *lḗgʰs? Proto-Italic *lēks Latin lex Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin lēgālislbor. English legal Proto-Indo-European *-iskos Proto-Germanic *-iskaz Proto-West Germanic *-iskbor. Late Latin -iscus ▲ Vulgar Latin -iscus Latin -ēnsis Old French -eisbor. Middle English -eys English -ese English legalese From legal + -ese.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.