Etymology

common law

Today it means: Law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations promulgated by the executive branch). Full definition →

Middle English comun lawe
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromcomun lawe
  2. English todaycommon law

Inherited from Middle English comun lawe, comune lawe (“general law, common law”), from comun (“shared, universal”) + lawe (“law”), referring to the law's uniform nature throughout a jurisdiction. Compare Medieval Latin lex commūne, iūs commūne and Anglo-Norman commune lei.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.