adjudicate

American  

[uh-joo-di-kayt] / əˈdʒu dɪˌkeɪt /

verb (used with object)

• adjudicates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• adjudicated,
  past participle,  past
• adjudicating
  present participle

1. to pronounce or decree by judicial sentence.

2. to settle or determine (an issue or dispute) judicially.

3. to act as judge of (a contest).

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verb (used without object)

• adjudicates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• adjudicated,
  past participle,  past
• adjudicating
  present participle

1. to sit in judgment (usually followed byupon ).

adjudicate British  

/ əˈdʒuːdɪˌkeɪt /

verb

1. to give a decision (on), esp a formal or binding one

2. (intr) to act as an adjudicator

3. (tr) chess to determine the likely result of (a game) by counting relative value of pieces, positional strength, etc

4. (intr) to serve as a judge or arbiter, as in a competition

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• adjudication
  noun
• adjudicator
  noun
• readjudicate
  verb
• adjudicative
  adjective
• adjudicatory
  adjective
• nonadjudicative
  adjective
• nonadjudicatively
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• adjudicating
  present
• adjudicated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• adjudicate
  simple
• adjudicates
  simple
• have adjudicated
  perfect
• has adjudicated
  perfect
• am adjudicating
  progressive
• are adjudicating
  progressive
• is adjudicating
  progressive
• have been adjudicating
  perfect progressive
• has been adjudicating
  perfect progressive

Past

• adjudicated
  simple
• had adjudicated
  perfect
• was adjudicating
  progressive
• were adjudicating
  progressive
• had been adjudicating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will adjudicate
  simple
• will have adjudicated
  perfect
• will be adjudicating
  progressive
• will have been adjudicating
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of adjudicate

First recorded in 1690–1700; from Latin adjūdicātus (past participle of adjūdicāre ); see ad-, judge, -ate ¹

Explanation

To adjudicate is to act like a judge. A judge might adjudicate a case in court, and you may have to adjudicate in the local talent show. Do you see a similarity between judge and adjudicate? When you add the common Latin prefix ad meaning "to" or "toward," you have a pretty good idea what the word means. But a judge isn't the only person who can adjudicate. If you're fighting with your little brother or sister and make them cry, your parents may adjudicate and send you to your room.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

adjudicate adjudicates adjudicated adjudicating

Critics argued that it flew in the face of innocent-before-proven-guilty parameters and that the job of police was to investigate, not adjudicate.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

“How would it work? How would you adjudicate these cases?”

From Salon ● Apr. 1, 2026

If the lien was entered incorrectly, you can file a motion to strike or adjudicate the lien in court.

From MarketWatch ● Mar. 11, 2026

The point was not to adjudicate whether the books are racist but to see what is revealed by the tropes and codes used to indicate racial difference.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026

This enterprise required that certain social and technical preconditions be met: the existence of reliable methods of communication, a common body of expert knowledge and an acknowledged group of experts able to adjudicate disputes.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

She appealed the decision with the Faculty Hearing Committee, an independent board that investigates and adjudicates disputes involving faculty members.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026

Meanwhile, the case was about to reach a United Nations agency that adjudicates copyright disputes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 22, 2025

Tax Court routinely adjudicates highly technical disputes between taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service, clarifying ambiguities in law and practice through published opinions.

From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2025

Most regional divisions of the Office of Civil Rights—which investigates and adjudicates violations of students’ rights—will be shuttered.

From Slate ● Jul. 15, 2025

Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses its municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts the inhabitants choose every four years a justice of the peace, who adjudicates in small disputes between neighbours.

From The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates

What happened next is already being fought over on the internet and soon will be adjudicated in court.

From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026

One flagged doubtful citations, the other assesses each flag, and I adjudicated every call against my archived sources, across 566 end notes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026

Notably, it has not been adjudicated whether or not the FCC has crossed the line into jawboning.

From Salon ● Jul. 10, 2026

“It could be adjudicated expeditiously, or it could be just determining that they also agree that there was no criminal intent in the chair’s testimony at the banking committee that I participated in,” he said.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 30, 2026

Years later, when the tribe created its first court system, which adjudicated mostly minor crimes, he was elected one of the three judges.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

A federal court in Texas may not stop a federal court in Rhode Island from adjudicating a case by issuing a glorified restraining order against the parties.

From Slate ● May 19, 2026

The position allows him to perform judicial and quasi-judicial functions, including adjudicating cases.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026

The days when dictators could live in gilded exile with fortunes in secret Swiss bank accounts are mostly over, primarily because of global mechanisms for adjudicating human-rights abuses and tracking ill-gotten gains.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025

But the countries have traded allegations of ceasefire breaches, and analysts say a comprehensive peace pact adjudicating the territorial dispute at the core of the conflict remains elusive.

From Barron's ● Nov. 10, 2025

But the septa could not have known that today's court would be anything but the usual tedious business of hearing petitions, settling disputes between rival holdfasts, and adjudicating the placement of boundary stones.

From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin

Related Words

• arbitrate