substantive right

American  

noun

1. a right, as life, liberty, or property, recognized for its own sake and as part of the natural legal order of society.

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Etymology

Origin of substantive right

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

“It isn’t a substantive right to receive the Miranda warnings themselves.”

From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2022

He was a brilliant and persistent trickster whose cunning in the techniques of polemic often silenced an opponent with every substantive right to win the debate.

From A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) by Collins, Anthony

The substantive right often supplies the place of ought, as "farmer A has a right to pay his tax."

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 10, No. 272, September 8, 1827 by Various