legalese

American

[lee-guh-leez, -lees] / ˌli gəˈliz, -ˈlis /

noun

language containing an excessive amount of legal terminology or of legal jargon.

legalese British

/ ˌliːɡəˈliːz /

noun

the conventional language in which legal documents, etc, are written

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of legalese

First recorded in 1910–15; legal + -ese

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:

legalese

Those rules have to be drafted in a formal, one-size-fits-all fashion, resulting in pages and pages of legalese.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026

When the footage emerged, the network decided to cancel her season, showcasing how ugly the altercation was behind all the legalese.

From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2026

“New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will,” a spokesman said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026

"New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will," she said.

From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2026

That’s why guidelines on how to avoid legalese and other turbid professional styles call for using first- and second-person pronouns, inverting passives into actives, and letting verbs be verbs rather than zombie nouns.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023