judge

• judg (obsolete)

From Middle English jugge, juge (“a judge”), juggen, jugen (“to judge”), borrowed from Old French juge (“judge”, noun), juger (“to judge”, verb), ultimately from Latin iūdicare (“pass judgement upon”), from iūdicem (“accusative of iūdex”), from iūdex (“judge”), from iūs (“law”) + dicus (“speaker”). The verb has mostly displaced native English deem and doom.

• enPR: jŭj, IPA^(key): /dʒʌdʒ/

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• Rhymes: -ʌdʒ

judge (plural judges)

1. A public official whose duty it is to administer the law, especially by presiding over trials and rendering judgments; a justice.
   • Francis Bacon

     The parts of a judge in hearing are four: to direct the evidence; to moderate length, repetition, or impertinency of speech; to recapitulate, select, and collate the material points of that which hath been said; and to give the rule or sentence.

2. A person who decides the fate of someone or something that has been called into question.
3. A person officiating at a sports event or similar.

   At a boxing match, the decision of the judges is final.

4. A person who evaluates something or forms an opinion.

   She is a good judge of wine.

   They say he is a poor judge of character considering all the unreliable friends he has made.

   • Dryden

     A man who is no judge of law may be a good judge of poetry, or eloquence, or of the merits of a painting.

• (one who judges in an official capacity): magistrate (now usually of low rank); justice (now usually of high rank); justiciar, justiciary (historic, of high rank); Chief Justice, Chief Justiciar, Capital Justiciary, Chief Justiciary, justiciar, justiciary (of the highest rank); justicer (obsolete); sheriff, bailiff, reeve (historic or obsolete)
• (one who judges generally): deemer, deemster

• judgecraft
• judgelike
• judgely
• judgeship
• judgeful
• judgy
• sober as a judge

judge (third-person singular simple present judges, present participle judging, simple past and past participle judged)

1. (transitive) To sit in judgment on; to pass sentence on.

   A higher power will judge you after you are dead.

2. (intransitive) To sit in judgment, to act as judge.

   Justices in this country judge without appeal.

3. (transitive) To form an opinion on.

   I judge a man’s character by the cut of his suit.

   • Let us be judged for what we attempted rather than what we achieved. —Michael Collins
4. (intransitive) To arbitrate; to pass opinion on something, especially to settle a dispute etc.

   We cannot both be right: you must judge between us.

5. (transitive) To have as an opinion; to consider, suppose.

   I judge it safe to leave the house once again.

6. (intransitive) To form an opinion; to infer.

   I judge from the sky that it might rain later.

   • 1884: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter VIII

     THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o'clock.

7. (transitive, intransitive) To criticize or label another person or thing.
   • Livin' on the Edge, Aerosmith

     There's something wrong with the world today; the light bulb's getting dim.

     There's meltdown in the sky.

     If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin,

     Mister, you're a better man than I

• See also Thesaurus:deem

• forejudge
• misjudge
• unjudge
• you can't judge a book by its cover