brutum fulmen

plural bruta fulmina · alternative fulmen brutum

1. lawA judgement without effect.

   Generally speaking the making of an order which will be a brutum fulmen serves no good purpose of justice.

   1958, Peter Edward Nygh, Conflict of Laws in Australia, page 149

   2 more examples

   ... it was a question only whether the one hundred and eighty inconsistent canons thus added to the Corpus Juris of the Church would remain a mere brutum fulmen, or whether they would be the source of endless litigation and schism.

   1910, William Ainger Wigram, An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church, page 112

   The later order of May 8, 1984, purporting also to declare the same declaration of trust void and revoked, accomplished nothing. It was a brutum fulmen.

   1987, Cal. Ct. App., Lazzaroni v. Larson, archived from the original on 03 Oct 2023

2. archaicAn empty threat.

   All These would have been Blasts of Wind, bruta Fulmina, no more, if the King had yielded ...

   1733, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, Dissertation Upon Parties, page 53

   2 more examples

   'But nobody heeds you, my worthy; it's mere waste of powder—shooting at emptiness, brutum fulmen—mere play-house thunder ...'

   1824, William Henry Pyne, Wine and Walnuts, page 301

   ... he owed his success to the threat to march on the capital, which would have been a brutum fulmen had it been capable of withstanding a siege.

   1840, Adolphus Slade, Travels in Germany and Russia, page 269