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Webster's Pocket Legal Dictionary

The law touches almost every aspect of life, and the language of law is accordingly as broad and complex as human experience itself. Defining, refining, debating, interpreting, and applying the words of constitutions, statutes, contracts, wills, judicial opinions, and other legal writings is a major preoccupation of the law. It is, in fact, a fundamental preoccupation, for to question the meaning of a term in a legal context is often to question the scope of the law itself. To define the word «murder,» for example, is to articulate just what distinguishes one of the most heinous of crimes from a lesser offense such as manslaughter, or for that matter from a heroic act of justifiable homicide. Even a seemingly insignificant word can make a crucial difference in the interpretation of a legal writing. One standard legal reference work-a ninety-volume compendium entitled Words and Phrases-cites almost fifty judicial opinions discussing the meaning of just the first word listed: «a.»...