friend of the court
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.09 in modern English
28
Scrabble Score
16
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Amicus curiae, a person or organization allowed to argue in court who is not a party to the legal action.
Canadian usage; American usage
Example Sentences
- "He did not know whether Mr. Henry appeared as the friend of the Court, or in behalf of the State."
- "Finally, the two Third Circuit cases cited by the friends of the Court have, as they themselves say, been legislatively overruled."
- "the Union and its affiliates across the nation intervened — through test suits and friend of the court briefs, through educational programs, and through public statements of policy and protest."
- "Thus far, these pronuclear public interest law firms have usually contributed friend-of-the-court briefs to existing litigation, rather than filing suits themselves."
Etymology
Calque of Latin amīcus cūriae.
Usage
Inflected Forms
friends of the court (plural)
friend-of-the-court (alternative)