verdict
Americannoun
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verdicts
plural
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Law. the finding or answer of a jury given to the court concerning a matter submitted to their judgment.
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a judgment; decision.
the verdict of the critics.
noun
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the findings of a jury on the issues of fact submitted to it for examination and trial; judgment
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any decision, judgment, or conclusion
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of verdict
1250–1300; Middle English < Medieval Latin vērdictum, variant of vērēdictum literally, something said truly; replacing Middle English verdit < Anglo-French < Latin vērum dictum true word
Explanation
A verdict is a decision made after a lot of considering, usually made by the jury in a courtroom. If you've finally decided that the test was unfair, that's your verdict and you should talk to the teacher about it. Although verdicts are usually announced in a courtroom, any time someone makes a judgment about something, it's a verdict. The truth lies in the root of this word: ver comes from the Latin verus, meaning "true." Ver shows up in other words — to verify something is to prove that it's true, and veracious is an adjective meaning "truthful." And the truth is exactly what the judge needs when he's trying to decide the verdict of a case.
Vocabulary lists containing verdict
You Can Say That Again: Dic and Dict
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Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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And Then There Were None
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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:
City are appealing against the verdict, meaning the severity and timing of any punishment - which could take the form of a points deduction - remain unknown.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
In a nearly 1,500-word X post after the jury verdict Friday, Ackman said, “While five years is a very long time to live under a reputational cloud, justice was finally served.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
The Robinsons' parents traveled from Australia for the month-long trial and left after the verdict.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
Courtney Iseman renders a verdict on this particular type of seasonal creep.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2026
Last night, there was another huge protest about the verdict.
From "A Good Kind of Trouble" by Lisa Moore Ramée
The verdicts came after a jury at Northampton Crown Court had deliberated for nearly 11 hours.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
Hashim Thaci was convicted in one of the final verdicts in a series of landmark trials arising from the bloody dissolution of the former Yugoslavia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
County prosecutors from seeking death verdicts, a policy Hochman wiped away when he took office in late 2024.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
The percentage of civil verdicts that dealt with exit bans also surged more than 30 times between 2019 and 2025, from around 0.23% to 7.3%.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
It remains the law in Alabama, where judges almost exclusively use this power to turn life sentences into death sentences, although they're also authorized to reduce death verdicts to life if they so choose.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
