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legal capacity

American  
[leeg-uhl-kuh-pas-i-tee] / ˈlig əl kəˈpæs ɪ ti /

noun

  • legal capacities
    plural
  1. the legal ability that a person has under the law to assume or occupy a particular role or relationship or to undertake a particular action.


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The court ruled that lack of legal capacity is not the same as lack of "valid consent" for the purposes of Article 5 of the Human Rights Act.

From BBC Jun. 2, 2026

Your husband would do well to sign a power-of-attorney document while he is of sound mind and has the legal capacity to do so, if he has not done so already.

From MarketWatch Oct. 27, 2025

Parliament passed a temporary measure allowing prisons to fill beyond legal capacity.

From Seattle Times Dec. 5, 2023

The lockup has held an average of 2,199 detainees each month over the last year, roughly 240 people fewer than the facility’s legal capacity, county officials said.

From New York Times Dec. 28, 2021

When the Birmingham jails filled up beyond legal capacity, the school buses delivered the arrested children to the Birmingham fairgrounds—the grounds where Kiddieland was located.

From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry

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